Indonesia’s 31 GW captive coal surpasses Australia’s fleet

The expansion could cause 27,000 deaths and $20 b in losses, the report warned.

Indonesia’s operational and planned captive coal power capacity has reached 31 gigawatts (GW), triple its 2023 baseline and larger than Australia’s current coal fleet, according to new analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

Captive coal plants, built to supply industrial facilities rather than the national grid, now include 19.3 GW in operation, 3.6 GW under construction and 8.16 GW in planning.

The researchers said official government-linked assessments understate the scale of the buildout.

A Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) report released last November listed inconsistent figures for planned captive coal capacity and excluded announced projects.

CREA and GEM also flagged regulatory loopholes in Presidential Regulation No. 112 of 2022, which grants exemptions to national strategic projects, including some captive plants. They said there is no public system to verify whether these facilities are meeting a mandated 35% emissions-reduction requirement.

Between July 2024 and July 2025, captive coal made up about 80% of all new coal capacity added in Indonesia, with growth concentrated in nickel-processing hubs in Central Sulawesi and North Maluku, where capacity has more than doubled since 2023.

CREA said that keeping captive plants outside national coal-retirement plans could result in 27,000 additional air-pollution deaths and about $20b in economic losses before the fleet is fully phased out.

In nickel hubs, air pollution is projected to cause 5,000 deaths a year and $3.42b in annual economic damage by 2030, while environmental degradation could cost farmers and fishers $235m over 15 years, the group said.

As global markets move toward low-carbon minerals, Indonesia risks losing access to international supply chains if it fails to decarbonise industrial power use, the report added.

GEM Senior Researcher Lucy Hummer said transparent data on captive plants is essential to plan renewable replacements and manage Indonesia’s coal phase-down.