The government will develop biogas technology as an energy source for small and medium scale industries, a senior official said.
Director General for Small and Medium Industries Euis Saedah said here on Monday that biogas could serve as an energy efficient solution for small and medium industries.
“The development of biogas has yet to be aimed at supporting the existence of 3.8 million IKMs while in fact the development of biogas is quite suitable with IKMs’ conditions, which are small scale and separate from each other,” she said.
She said that the number of IKMs have now reached 3.8 million and employ about 8.75 million workers. About 90 percent of these industries were small industries. The remaining ones were middle scale in sectors such as food, chemicals, construction materials, clothing, handicraft and metal as well as electronics.
In the meantime, Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) Suryo Bambang Sulisto said the government had not yet provided incentive for the development of biogas in Indonesia.
“The incentive is needed so that the people will turn to alternative energy,” she said.
She said that since it was developed 20 years ago, there are now only 14,000 units of biogas development devices in Indonesia.
“Kadin has a target to install one million units in the next three years,” she said.
