Tesla Plans to Invest Batteries in Indonesia

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Tesla, Inc., an automotive and energy storage company in the United States owned by Elon Musk, plans to invest in electric vehicle batteries in Indonesia. Actually, this investment plan has been planned for a long time, but its realization has yet to be carried out.

This is because Tesla provides a condition that nickel mining in the country they are going to must pay attention to environmental issues.

As is known, Tesla Inc. Previously, it was reported that they had contacted the Indonesian government again regarding their plans to invest in a giant power bank or energy storage system (ESS) project. This is after two years, the electric car manufacturer from the US has never executed its plan to invest in the country.

BKPM’s Deputy for Investment Planning, Nurul Ichwan said that the process of environmentally friendly mining activities is currently a concern of world investors. Even Tesla, which is a giant electric car manufacturer from the US, is very focused on this issue.

“Tesla said that we only entered the business of using nickel for batteries in a country where when he produced his nickel he used environmentally friendly technology,” he said during the Indonesia Mining Forum discussion, Wednesday (13/4/2022).

Therefore, it is necessary to improve the process of mining production activities, especially nickel mining. Moreover, Tesla also wants that investment destination countries must use clean electricity for every production activity, without using coal.

On the other hand, the Deputy for Investment and Mining Coordination of the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Kemenko Marves) Septian Hario Seto said that currently, his party is still in discussions with Tesla regarding investment plans in Indonesia. However, he did not go into detail about the discussion.

This is because Indonesia is bound by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). But for sure, Tesla is more interested in investing in the ESS project than electric batteries.

According to Seto, the demand for ESS in Indonesia is expected to be quite large. Moreover, the government is currently focusing on making an energy transition by boosting the construction of solar power plants or PLTS.

“I think it needs this ESS on a large scale to ensure a stable electricity supply. The energy produced by solar panels is stored first to stabilize the output. I think there is a big demand for ESS because not all regions in Indonesia have geothermal,” he said.