Technical and social assessment of biogas in Yogyakarta and Gorontalo, Indonesia

As an agriculture country, Indonesia tries to diverse its energy sources to biogas, especially to reduce fossil energy in household sector. However, biogas plants in Indonesia are barely evaluated after the installation. Therefore, this study was conducted to fill this gap. This study investigated technical and social conditions of biogas implementation in Plosokerep and Wonolelo Village, Yogyakarta and Tanjung Harapan and Dumati Village in Gorontalo. Three out of four communal biogas plants assessed in this study are still operating. Yet, sustainability of the plants faces several challenges, i.e. poor biogas installation (e.g. missing water trap and leaking gas holder), missing system for equal biogas distribution, missing supply chain for biogas spare parts, and week polycentric local governance. Several recommendation to improve this condition are installation of biogas monitoring in distribution pipeline, regular and monitoring and assistance, development of supply chain network with commercial entities, and distribution of power and responsibility to ensure operation of the system if one of stakeholder failed to perform.