Although Indonesia’s electrification ratio reached 99.2% in 2020, it has shown stagnating electrification since 2018. This is because most of the remaining areas that need to be electrified are remote and have unique characteristics that hamper implementation of microgrids for providing energy access. Furthermore, not only the deployment but also the long-term sustainability of microgrids is crucial for ensuring continuity of energy access. This paper aims to investigate the scaling and sustainability challenges of remote microgrid development in Indonesia by analyzing microgrids in the Maluku and North Maluku provinces. This study is a two-part publication; the first part focuses on identifying challenges in Indonesia’s remote microgrid development, while the second part focuses on potential technology solutions. In the first part, an assessment of energy access within a multi-tier framework was conducted, which was then analyzed using a multi-dimensional (institutional, social, technical, economic, environmental, and policy) approach adapted from the literature. The framework was expanded by mapping the challenges onto specific phases of the microgrid development, which is intended to be helpful for the parties involved in specific phases. It is shown that the challenges related to unclear land status, lack of social engagement, preliminary survey, technical and practical knowledge, and O&M procedures—especially for remote microgrids with renewable energy sources—are the most prominent issues. Additionally, issues caused by electrical events and environmental conditions such as relatively humid and high-temperatures, and uncontrolled vegetation, rodents, insects, and lizards are often found. Furthermore, a high-level technological outlook to address some of these issues is presented.

This paper proposes the integration of battery impedance spectroscopy (BIS) into a battery management system with a reduced number of inductor and switch components compared to existing methods. Moreover, this paper presents an internal preheating mechanism, active state of charge (SoC) equalizer, and BIS without an external power source so that there is no additional component needed. During a BIS measurement, the battery management system controls the switches in order to circulate a periodical current signal and measure the battery voltage terminals. The SoC equalizer is needed to equalize the SoC in each battery to prevent over-charging and over-discharging. The internal preheating mechanism is used during low temperatures to preheat the battery since the battery has a higher resistance at low temperatures. The prototype can measure the battery impedance from 100 – 5 kHz with the parameter errors for the internal series resistances of the battery ( R_batt ) are 1.59%, 3.72%, and 3.72% and the charge transfer resistances ( R_ct ) are 5.91%, 8.04%, and 6.89% for B₁ , B₂ , and B₃ . While the double layer capacitances (C _dl ) parameter errors are 5.62%, 7.29%, and 6.48% for B₁ , B₂ , and B₃ . A 50 kHz switching frequency is used with the equalizing duration of approximately 400s with the 90.67% efficiency. The self-heating energy consumption is 0.21 %/° C from 0 to 13.5 °C.

This paper proposes a multi-functional Photovoltaic (PV) inverter based on the Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) configuration. Power quality improvement is a difficult issue to solve for isolated areas or islands connected to the mainland through long submarine cables. In the proposed system, the line voltage is compensated for by the series inverter while the shunt inverter delivers the PV generating power to the grid. Depending on the technical conditions of power quality and system environment, it has five different operating modes. Especially during poor power quality conditions, the sensitive load is separated from the normal load to provide a different power quality level by using the microgrid conception. In this paper, the control method and the power flow for each mode are described, and the operational performance is verified through a PSiM simulation so that it can be applied to the power quality improvement of weak grid power systems such as in isolated areas or on islands connected to the mainland by long submarine cables.

This paper suggests an embedded battery impedance measurement based on an Inductor Capacitor (LC) resonant tank to measure the battery’s internal temperature for battery management systems (BMS). The purpose of the BMS is to provide state-of-charge (SoC) balancing and the preheating mechanism at sub-zero temperatures. Battery Impedance Spectroscopy (BIS) for battery internal temperature measurement is achieved by an LC resonant tank connected to the batteries in parallel to induce created resonant current and voltage into the battery. The peaks of the voltage and current waveforms are measured and recorded. Then, the resistance of the battery can be calculated by comparing the peak voltage and current waveforms. Since the resistance of the battery is affected by the battery’s internal temperature, the internal temperature of the battery can be estimated. The benefit of using the LC tank for the battery’s internal temperature is to reduce data processing since no window and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is needed for this method. In addition, the proposed method measures the battery’s internal temperature without any internal or external temperature sensor. Power Simulation (PSIM) simulation software is used in this proposed method. Panasonic batteries 18650 and a dSPACE DS1104 are used for the experiment to verify the proposed method. The proposed method shows that the LC resonant tank can measure three batteries B₁, B₂, and B₃ internal resistance with 17.87%, 18.14%, and 17.73% errors compared to the Frequency Response Analyzer (FRA). In addition, the total time needed for balancing is 400 s, and the total energy consumed by the preheating mechanism is 0.214%/°C to preheat the lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) from −5 °C to 10 °C.

This paper is the companion paper of Remote Microgrids for Energy Access in Indonesia “Part I: scaling and sustainability challenges and a technology outlook”. This part II investigates the issues of photovoltaic (PV) systems with respect to the planning, design, and operation, and maintenance phases in microgrids in Indonesia. The technology outlooks are also included as PV has an important role in providing electricity in the underdeveloped, isolated, and border areas. The data in this paper are from PV microgrids located in Maluku and North Maluku, which are two provinces where there is barely any grid connection available and thus very dependent on remote microgrids. The data are obtained from interviews with Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) and NZMATES, which are an Indonesian utility company and a program for supporting role for the PV systems in Maluku funded by New Zealand respectively. Common issues with respect to reliability and sustainability are identified based on the provided data. Advanced technologies to increase reliability and sustainability are also presented in this paper as a technology outlook. Among these solutions are online monitoring systems, PV and battery lifetime estimation, load forecasting strategies, and PV inverters technology.