As climate change becomes an issue of exponentially greater importance, many countries have made strides in choosing clean energy sources for their people and industries. One such country is Indonesia, where energy issues are continuously being addressed by the government and discussed in traditional and social media.
Fossil fuels remain to be the number one source of energy in Indonesia, primarily from oil, gas, and carbon. Coal remains to be an important commodity in the country, where four provinces account for up to 90% of coal production. With an electrification rate of 99.2% by December 2020, Indonesia’s energy resources mostly come from coal. However, the government has been shifting towards clean coal energy production in recent years, with an effort to reduce emissions from fossil fuel power plants.
The demand for renewable energy has been on a steady incline in the country in the last decade, and Indonesian energy companies acknowledge its significance. The country has set a target of 25% of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2025 and raising it to 50% by 2050. Hydro and geothermal energy are their top two sources of renewable energy, contributing to a small percentage of Indonesia’s energy supply.
Social media has been an important avenue to raise awareness regarding clean energy, as the government utilizes it to push renewable energy options as the best option in Indonesia.
Top players in the Indonesian energy sector
The local energy sector is dominated by government and locally owned firms. State-owned energy companies are typically divided into energy, oil, and electricity companies, while privately-owned corporations focus on oil and gas production.
PT Pertamina is a government-owned oil and natural gas corporation based in Jakarta, and they are the third-largest crude oil producer in the country. PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara is another government-owned firm and holds a monopoly on electricity production in the country, generating the majority of the country’s electrical power through coal. PT Perusahaan Gas Negara is another government-owned company that produces natural gas, distributing supply to 84 million customers through 3,187 kilometers of pipelines.
Some of the country’s biggest energy companies include PT Bumi Resources, the biggest thermal coal producer in the country, owned by the Indonesian conglomerate Bakrie Group. Meanwhile, PT Medco Energi Internasional is a publicly listed oil and gas company, focused on both production and exploration. Lastly, PT Adaro Energy focuses on coal mining through its subsidiaries, and is one of Indonesia’s largest coal mining companies along with PT Bumi Resources.
Social media usage among energy companies
At first glance, the Indonesian energy sector could do well with harnessing the power of social media in order to promote their businesses as well as improve their services. With around 170 million people actively using social media in the country, the social media presence of the top players in their energy sector leaves much to be desired.
Pertamina’s official Facebook page has less than 500,000 likes and followers respectively, despite posting one to four times a day on weekdays. PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara has around 90,000 Facebook page likes and around 120,000 followers, with posting frequencies of one to two times a day on an average of six days a week. Among all the state-owned energy companies, PT Perusahaan Gas Negara has the least number of Facebook page likes and followers, with only around 40,000 each.
Generally, these pages have similar themes present in their Facebook content. They offer tips on smart energy consumption, promote events related to the energy sector as well as other company-branded events (for example, the Pertamina Grand Prix), share corporate social responsibility projects, and post updates on service expansions and improvements. They also announce new innovations and efforts to provide energy and electricity to their customers, despite challenges faced by the industry and its workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.
These types of content help to increase brand consideration and build trust between these state-owned companies and their customers. With the promise of social responsibility and reliability, these companies are able to utilize social media to properly connect with their customers.
For privately-owned companies, social media remains to be heavily underutilized. PT Bumi Resources only posts on their Facebook page sporadically to followers and page likes of around 600 respectively. PT Medco Energi is even more elusive, with no Facebook page and only a LinkedIn page, with more than 27,000 followers but no posts. PT Adaro Energy has around 11,000 page likes and around 10,000 followers on Facebook but has been inconsistent with posting content. However, their messaging has tended to lean towards choosing cleaner energy, despite being one of the country’s leading coal mining companies.
Opportunities for Indonesian energy companies on social media
State-owned energy companies in Indonesia have a head start on using social media to their advantage, mostly through their presence on Facebook as well as heavily promoting their brand and services on their pages. If the government could utilize these pages to promote renewable energy sources as well as other efforts to shift to clean energy, more Indonesians will be aware of the positive effects of choosing clean energy to secure their future and the future of the planet.
These state-owned companies can also use their social media platforms to discuss climate change and how renewable energy sources can help prevent future natural disasters in Indonesia, a country known for severe flooding and landslides during monsoon season. As victims of calamities that can be directly tied with climate change, choosing renewable energy sources becomes more important. These state-owned energy companies can use their Facebook pages to send that message across.
Similarly, as coal energy continues to be shunned and demonized the world over, the country’s largest coal mining companies could do well with using social media to promote their efforts towards transitioning to renewable energy sources, especially with the increasing costs of coal mining. Such efforts can help create a positive image for these companies, especially as coal mining has been known to be the reason behind polluted rivers and rice paddies as well as rainforest clearing.
Proving their capacity for cleaner energy sources is of utmost importance for Indonesian energy companies at the moment. With established pages on Facebook and audiences that are highly online, it won’t be hard for these companies to promote renewable energy while establishing trust with their customers. As coal mining becomes the less favorable option for producing energy in the country, a shift should be seen in order for these energy companies to create a positive image for their firms as well as the energy sector as a whole.
