Jakarta. Competition among industrial estates in Asia is no longer determined solely by land availability, logistics connectivity, and production facilities. Access to reliable, efficient, and increasingly low-carbon energy is becoming an important consideration for companies when choosing investment locations or expanding their production facilities.

For industrial estate operators, this shift presents a new opportunity to strengthen competitiveness through clean energy readiness and low-carbon infrastructure.

SUN is seeking to capture this opportunity by promoting the development of integrated energy and electrification ecosystems within industrial estates. Clean energy, energy storage systems, electric vehicle infrastructure, and data-driven energy management systems can be developed as part of estate infrastructure to help tenants improve operational efficiency while meeting their sustainability targets.

As of the second quarter of 2026, Indonesia had around 180 industrial estates housing nearly 12,000 companies or tenants. With high levels of industrial activity across these estates, the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, particularly solar power, has the potential to become one of the drivers of Indonesia's decarbonization efforts toward Net Zero Emissions by 2060 or sooner.

Energy as a Competitive Advantage for Industrial Estates
For years, the value proposition of industrial estates has primarily been built around strategic locations, transportation access, utility availability, and supporting facilities. Going forward, however, tenant needs are becoming increasingly complex.

Multinational companies and export-oriented manufacturers face growing pressure to improve energy efficiency, reduce emissions, provide data for sustainability reporting, and maintain a reliable energy supply.

The World Bank has noted that greater renewable energy deployment in East Asia could strengthen economic growth, energy security, and industrial competitiveness. Energy efficiency, electrification, and renewable energy are also among the key pathways for decarbonizing the power and industrial sectors, which together account for a significant share of energy-related emissions in the region.

According to a roadmap developed jointly by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Indonesia's Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, coal still accounts for around 60% of Indonesia's electricity generation mix. In the short term, energy efficiency, renewable energy development within the power system, and transport electrification are expected to contribute around 80% of the emissions reductions needed in the energy sector by 2030 to put Indonesia on track toward its net-zero target.

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy could generate broad economic benefits, particularly for industrial estates with large numbers of tenants. These include helping tenants meet emissions reduction targets, improving energy cost predictability, strengthening energy resilience, providing energy consumption data for sustainability reporting, and making industrial estates more attractive to multinational companies.

From Utility Provider to Electrification Enabler
Green industrial estates cannot be built simply by installing separate solar panel systems on each tenant's building. Industrial estates also have an opportunity to develop integrated electrification infrastructure that can be shared and expanded alongside their tenants.

Such an ecosystem could include estate-level ground-mounted solar power plants and rooftop solar systems at tenant facilities, depending on technical requirements and prevailing regulations. Integration could also extend to the electrification of operational vehicles, including shuttle buses, logistics vehicles, and heavy equipment, supported by charging infrastructure and systems to monitor energy consumption, emissions reductions, and facility performance.

At the same time, monitoring systems can provide industrial estate operators and tenants with greater visibility into energy consumption, asset performance, vehicle usage, and emissions reductions. Such integration could create a new utility layer within industrial estates, going beyond the supply of electricity to provide infrastructure that helps tenants operate their businesses more efficiently.

One Infrastructure Ecosystem, Multiple Benefits for Tenants
An estate-level approach can also offer advantages over solutions implemented entirely on an individual tenant basis. Integrated infrastructure can help tenants access electrification solutions without having to build the entire ecosystem independently.

For tenants, the benefits could include more predictable energy costs, greater access to clean energy, electric vehicle infrastructure readiness, and the availability of data for energy management and sustainability reporting. For industrial estate operators, these benefits can translate into improved service quality and greater differentiation.

To address these needs, SUN, as an integrated sustainability solutions provider, offers solutions covering solar power, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and electric mobility.

At Jababeka Industrial Estate, SUN has developed solar power projects with a combined capacity of around 1.8 MW for tenants across various sectors, ranging from building materials and automotive components to pharmaceuticals, inspection laboratories, and packaging. The project has the potential to serve as one of the pilot areas for developing a low-carbon industrial estate while demonstrating how solar energy can be deployed collectively in an industrial environment.

Green Industrial Estates as Investment Magnets
The industrial estates of the future will not merely provide a place to build factories. They will need to offer an ecosystem that enables companies to operate efficiently, remain resilient, and meet the growing low-carbon requirements of global supply chains.

Investment in clean energy and electrification should therefore be viewed in a broader context. Solar power, BESS, charging infrastructure, vehicle electrification, and digital systems are not simply additional facilities. When properly integrated, these elements can become part of an industrial estate's strategic infrastructure.

For Indonesia, the development of industrial estates with strong electrification infrastructure could strengthen manufacturing competitiveness and enhance the country's investment appeal. For industrial estate operators, the ability to provide more efficient energy, better-prepared infrastructure, and solutions that make it easier for tenants to transition could become a new competitive advantage in the increasingly competitive industrial estate landscape.

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