In an effort to spur innovation within the Pakistani domestic appliance industry, CLASP and partners led a group of manufacturers on a lab tour of the China Household Electric Appliance Research Institute (CHEARI), a leading appliance test facility in China. As gas reserves dwindle and the country faces some of the harshest temperatures in the world, Pakistan must improve and scale more efficient uses of energy – starting with the most common and energy-intensive household appliances.

“Pakistan is running out of gas by 9% each year. We believe in the future, these reserves will be critically low,” says Muhammad Salman Zaffar, Technical Lead for CLASP’s Pakistan Program.

Despite the drop in availability, the majority of Pakistani households rely on inefficient gas-powered appliances to meet their daily needs.

As temperatures rise in the world’s fourth most populous country, so does the demand for air conditioners (ACs). In 2020, CLASP found that ACs are one of Indonesia’s most energy-intensive appliances – without regulation, AC proliferation could exacerbate power supply gaps, stress peak loads, and increase greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). To ensure that cooling demand can be met sustainably, CLASP brought together industry and government stakeholders to discuss energy efficiency interventions for approximately 129 million units to be manufactured by 2040.

Soaring temperatures leads to a growing demand for cooling

Over the past decade, Indonesia has seen a 0.4 °C. rise in average temperature, now experiencing a regular climate of 27°C and above. Despite a growing need, only 6% of Indonesian households currently have access to ACs.

By 2040, Indonesia is projected to be home to nearly half of all ACs in Southeast Asia – adding around 117 million installed units over the next two decades. To anticipate and plan for this growth, CLASP co-hosted a workshop with the Indonesian Directorate of Energy Conservation and the ASEAN Centre for Energy.

“The workshop convened energy efficiency experts and the Indonesian government to discuss current market information on split air conditioners, the most energy-efficient option on the market,” said Nanik Rahmawati, Program Manager at CLASP Indonesia. “We outlined a plan to further AC efficiency across the country.”

To meet national and regional climate and efficiency targets1, ten countries in Southeast Asia work through ASEAN to update policies and goals every five years.  Indonesia is also a member of the Super-Efficient Equipment and Appliances Deployment Initiative (SEAD), which stipulates that air conditioners are a priority appliance and efficiency levels must be doubled to substantially reduce emissions. Under these agreements, Indonesia must spearhead more aggressive cooling efficiency efforts.

Industry-inclusive policymaking 

The workshop titled, ‘Forum for Improving AC Energy Efficiency’, aimed to provide an avenue for key players from the AC supply and demand sides to actively engage in the policy drafting process. Over 50 participants from consumers associations, the Association of AC Experts, the Association of Practitioners and Entrepreneurs, NGOs, and governmental agencies. The participants signaled enthusiasm and willingness to participate in the process.

“This workshop was highly productive—we identified stakeholders’ individual capabilities, devised a plan to improve efficiency of ACs, and recognized institutions that could take energy efficiency for cooling products even further,” explained Rahmawati. “These policies are imperative to ensure more equitable cooling access, while limiting GHG emissions.”

Including diverse perspectives will ensure a smooth market transition and mitigate the risk of non-compliance. CLASP’s industry-inclusive process has yielded widespread success across Asia, recently achieving increased efficiency levels for motors and heat pumps in Pakistan. The workshop was supported by the Indonesian Consumers Protection Foundation (YLKI), ClimateWorks Foundation and CLASP.

Growing Population Strains Energy Needs

With 273 million people, Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world. Current projections estimate a 5x increase in electricity use per capita and 2x increases in final energy consumption per capita. And once-scarce appliances like air conditioners will see a sevenfold increase by 2040. Despite the multitude of benefits, efficiency receives less government funding and attention than other energy transition programs like transportation and solar home system distribution.

Over the past three years, CLASP has supported the Indonesian government in developing efficiency policies for fans, refrigerators and rice cookers. Because of this partnership, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) requested CLASP’s input on the creation of the Net Zero Emissions (NZE) roadmap. In their updated National Determined Contributions published in 2021, Indonesia committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 29% through its own efforts and 41% conditional on international support, by 2030. Alongside the update, they submitted their Long-Term Strategy for Low Carbon and Climate Resilience 2050, which mentioned a goal of reaching NZE by 2060. That goal was later reiterated by the Energy Minister during COP26.

CLASP will bring our expertise into roadmap discussions to ensure the Ministry includes efficiency considerations for other appliances that contribute to high energy use. Increasing the ambition of efficiency policies can have significant impacts on emission reductions, ensuring Indonesia meets their net-zero target economically and on time.

Putting Energy Efficiency on the Map

Many projects that support the goals of the roadmap have already begun, like the harmonization of national standards and minimum energy efficiency requirements with regional ASEAN levels. This work would translate to a 32% reduction in energy intensity by 2025 and has already been initiated with harmonized AC and lighting standards. Following commitments made during COP26, the plan will also include steps to deliver on the pledge to double the efficiency of four key appliances by 2030, as per the SEAD Initiative’s Product Efficiency Call to Action.

CLASP is supporting the Ministry’s policy modeling team to develop energy use projections for relevant appliances through 2060, using Mepsy – our climate impacts calculator. For this project, we extended Mepsy’s projection capabilities to 2060, enabling a longer projection timeline for all available appliances and countries. In the coming months, CLASP will continue to attend inter-ministerial meetings to discuss mitigation scenarios and reach consensus among the proposed strategies. The work will likely be presented at the G20 Leader’s Summit in October 2022.

To close out 2021, the Directorate of Energy Conservation in Indonesia drafted new MEPS and labeling policies for chillers and refrigerated display cabinets (RDCs), with CLASP support and in accordance with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Regulation No. 14/2021 on Implementation of Minimum Energy Standards for Energy-Using Equipment. Both appliances consume large amounts of energy and are used by millions of businesses and organizations, providing an enormous opportunity for efficiency improvements and emissions reductions. By 2030, the policies have the potential to prevent 10.5 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions and reduce the country’s energy use by 11,725 GWh, about 4% of the national annual consumption.

Indonesia is home to the second most supertall buildings (structures over 300 m tall) in Southeast Asia, and by end of 2020, the country had 105 such buildings. Better regulated chillers would increase the efficiency of these buildings’ cooling systems and significantly contribute to the country’s overall building efficiency.

RDCs are designed to maintain food and beverages at very low temperatures. According to BPS (the Indonesian Statistical Bureau), Indonesia has over 4 million enterprises in the Food and Beverage Service Activities sector, a majority of which regularly use RDCs.

Because of the potential market of both appliances, implementing appliance energy efficiency policies is critical to ensuring that consumers are only purchasing highly efficient, quality appliances. The MEPS and labeling policies will encompass:

• Scope or coverage of the regulation, such as definition, HS code, type or characteristic of products, etc.
• Values of the MEPS
• Type and model of the product certification
• Procedures and requirements for product testing
• Exceptions
• Tolerance values

From 20-21 December 2021, a technical team responsible for the development of MEPS and energy label regulations and representatives from ASHRAE and SUCOFINDO convened in West Java, Indonesia. The process will continue next year with a series of consultative meetings with key stakeholders impacted by the regulatory changes.

Indonesia announced new and revised energy policies for five widely used appliances — fans, refrigerators, rice cookers, air conditioners, and televisions — that will cut carbon emissions and benefit people by reducing household energy bills.

The AC policies were issued by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) on August 16 and took effect immediately, while the remaining appliances policies were issued on September 20 and will take effect one year from then. The policies represent a significant climate mitigation win for the country. At the initial energy performance levels, the policies will avoid 10.7 million metric tons of CO₂ (MTCO₂) emissions cumulatively by 2030 and 2.1 MTCO₂ annually from 2030 onwards.

Residential energy use in Indonesia has more than doubled over the last decade and is expected to continue growing as the warming climate will increase demand for cooling appliances in particular. The new policies will remove inefficient products from the market, ensuring that appliances included in the scheme carry an energy label to positively impact consumer decision-making, and help the Indonesian power grid keep up with growing demand. Appliance efficiency policy efforts in Indonesia were stalled in past years due to a lack of data, but CLASP’s Residential End-Use Survey, published in 2020, helped create a clearer picture of appliance use and demand.

CLASP supported the MEMR in developing three of these policies by conducting consumer and market research and assessing the potential climate impacts of various policy scenarios. “The cooperation between CLASP and the Directorate General of New and Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation has been a tremendous help on the development of energy efficiency policies in Indonesia,” said Dr. Ir. Hariyanto, M.T., Director of Energy Conservation of Directorate General of New and Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (July 2018 – February 2021) in a statement about the work.

CLASP-Supported Policies

Fans are an important energy-consuming product in Indonesia’s hot and humid tropical climate, offering effective and financially accessible cooling. Last June, CLASP published an end-use survey showing that households operate fans for an average of 6.4 hours per day, leading to high overall energy consumption. The new fan efficiency policy will avoid 6.8 MTCO₂ of emissions from 2023 to 2030, reaching 1.3 MTCO₂ in annual reductions by 2030.

There are 43.4 million refrigerators in use in Indonesia, with about 2.5 million units sold yearly according to 2018 data. Under the new efficiency policy, refrigerator energy performance requirements will be set at a moderate level with projected greenhouse gas mitigation of 1.0 MTCO₂ over the next decade and 0.2 MTCO₂ annually by 2030. Indonesian manufacturers are well positioned to meet more stringent regulations over time, since in addition to serving domestic demand, the industry exports to more than 100 countries including markets like South Korea, Japan, and Australia, where they meet higher efficiency requirements.

Rice is an important element in Indonesian cooking, and the majority of households use a rice cooker on a daily basis. However, there are many unregistered and low-quality models on the market, indicating an opportunity for efficiency policies to reduce overall energy use for climate and consumer benefits. Under the new policy, higher rice cooker efficiency requirements will avoid emissions of 2.9 MTCO₂ over the next decade, growing to 0.6 MTCO₂ annually by 2030.

Looking forward, CLASP will continue to work with MEMR and other stakeholders across a wide range of priorities, including strengthening compliance with the new policies, addressing additional products, and increasing public adoption of super-efficient air conditioners.

Read about CLASP’s Indonesian end-use survey and market research here, and explore our work on cooking and cooling policy.

See DJEBTKE’s Instagram post announcing the new policies.

For media inquiries, please contact Matt Malinowski at mmalinowski@clasp.ngo