Village Electricity and Micro Hydro (PLTMH) in Indonesia: The Latest Data and What It Means for Programs

Almost every household in Indonesia is now recorded as having electricity, but village electrification is not finished. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) still targets thousands of villages that are not connected to the PLN grid, most of them in remote areas that power lines struggle to reach. In such places, a PLTMH (pembangkit listrik tenaga mikrohidro, or micro hydro power plant) is often the choice because it uses the local river

This article summarizes SIDIA Research No. 03, a review of published data on three questions: how many villages are still waiting for electricity, how much of the small scale hydro potential has been used, and what is known about the fate of the micro hydro plants already built. The full report can be downloaded as a PDF in Indonesian

Electrification Is Almost Complete, but Thousands of Villages Lack PLN Power

ESDM calculates the electrification ratio as the number of households with electricity divided by the total number of households. It rose from 98.89% in 2019 to about 99.83% at the end of 2024

However, the ratio combines PLN and non PLN electricity. In 2023, for example, 98.32% of households received electricity from PLN and 1.46% from non PLN sources, including village plants. That is why, in September 2025, ESDM still named 5,758 villages without PLN power, with about 1.2 million households, as the target of the 2025 to 2029 Village Electricity Program

How Fast the Village Electricity Program Is Moving

According to ESDM, in 2025 the Village Electricity Program brought power to 77,616 households at 1,516 locations, and the New Connection Assistance program (BPBL) reached 205,968 households. Compared with the target of about 1.2 million households, the first year of the Village Electricity Program achieved about 6.5%. This is a rough calculation by SIDIA, because targets and results are not always counted on the same basis

The government aims to bring electricity to every village and hamlet by 2029. For remote areas, ESDM names the expansion of solar power plants as the off grid solution. The press releases we read do not mention micro hydro specifically

Micro Hydro Potential Is Barely Used

The National Energy General Plan (RUEN) in Perpres 22/2017 records 19,385 MW of mini and micro hydro potential, with 197.4 MW installed in 2015, or 1.0% of the potential. RUEN projected development to reach 3 GW by 2025 and 7 GW by 2050

More recent data shows progress, but still far from that projection:

• UNIDO recorded 543 MW of small scale hydropower (up to 10 MW) from 185 plants in 2020, about 3% of the potential
• The 2025 ESDM energy statistics handbook records 954.23 MW of mini hydro and 22.22 MW of micro hydro connected to the grid in 2024, plus 28.86 MW of micro hydro and 3.72 MW of mini hydro off the PLN grid
• Together the four come to about 1,009 MW, roughly a third of the RUEN projection for 2025 (SIDIA's calculation)

Each source uses a different definition. UNIDO uses a 10 MW limit, a 2023 historical review says micro hydro usually means 10 kW to just under 1 MW, and Perpres 112/2022 calls all of them hydropower plants (PLTA). The figures above should therefore be read as orders of magnitude, not compared exactly

How Many Micro Hydro Plants Are Still Running

This question cannot yet be answered with national data. A review by Rospriandana and colleagues (2023) states that there is no reliable record of the number of micro hydro systems in Indonesia. It cites a GIZ survey: 357 micro hydro units with a total of about 9.5 MW were built from 2009 to 2017 and served almost 38,000 households

The same review notes that some plants were abandoned when the PLN grid arrived, and finds that government projects often failed because they focused on output targets rather than sustainability and service quality. We cover the technical and management factors that keep a PLTMH running in our article on community owned micro hydro

Rules on Selling Power to PLN

Perpres 112/2022 sets the ceiling price for electricity from hydropower bought by PLN. For capacity up to 1 MW, the price is 11.23 US cents per kWh multiplied by a location factor in years one to ten, then 7.02 cents in years eleven to thirty. Plants built entirely by the central or regional government, including with grants, are priced at 3.76 US cents per kWh. Run of river plants up to 5 MW must also be able to operate at a capacity factor of at least 60%

For village micro hydro plants built with public funds, this lower price needs to be factored in from the start if the plan is to sell electricity to PLN once the grid arrives

Conclusion

On paper, Indonesia's electrification is almost complete, but the remaining work lies in remote villages where costs are highest. Micro hydro potential is still large, while data on the plants already standing remains thin. For local governments, BUMN and donors, a sensible first step before building new plants is to map existing micro hydro plants, check which can still be restored and then monitor their operating hours

SIDIA's Renewable Energy program supports PLTMH feasibility and design, maintenance arrangements and capacity building for the communities that manage them