Our Work

The main focus of Traction Energy Asia’s work is to accelerate Indonesia and Asia’s transition from unsustainable, polluting fossil energy, to sustainable clean energy and low carbon growth.

Low Carbon Development

Although Indonesia is beginning to make some progress in clean energy uptake, it is way behind other leading Asian economies, such as China, India, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, in providing the regulatory and market incentives needed to attract investment into large clean energy projects. Traction Energy Asia focuses on providing compelling arguments to Indonesia’s policy makers and business leaders, backed up by robust research, to encourage them to rapidly develop a strong policy framework, driven by a strong political will, to enable large-scale harnessing of Indonesia’s abundant clean energy resources.

Energy Transition

Indonesia’s ambition to become the world’s fifth largest economy by 2045 is currently being undermined by the nation’s struggles to transition its economy from unsustainable resource extraction and fossil fuel use, to one based on services and sustainable domestic production. In order to realise this ambition, Indonesia’s leaders need to quickly realign the policy and regulatory landscape to enable the switch from dirty to clean energy needed to put Indonesia on a low carbon development pathway. Traction energy Asia also advocates for the measures needed to embed and institutionalize the clean energy transformation to block any return to fossil fuels.

Bioenergy refers to electricity, gas or transport fuels that are produced from organic matter, known as biomass, which includes plants and crops, wood, agricultural and food waste, and sewage (black water). ​

The majority of foreign direct investment in Indonesia, especially from other large Asian economies such as China, Japan and South Korea, is for projects in the power generation and mineral mining, iron and steel, infrastructure, construction, railways, highways, and automotive sectors

While Indonesia has incorporated its commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as some aspects of the nation’s Paris Agreement commitment, into its national development planning, implementing these commitments at sub-national level presents huge challenges.