World Resources Institute, Indonesia: Grantee Spotlight (Q3 2026)

The Giving Green Fund is awarding two restricted grants to WRI Indonesia to 1) advance geothermal project development in Indonesia and 2) strengthen coordination between national and provincial electricity planning. WRI Indonesia is an independent research institution based in Jakarta that works with government, the state utility, and industry to turn technical analysis into energy and climate policy.

WRI Indonesia's work falls within our philanthropic strategy of decarbonizing Indonesia's power sector and, more specifically, our sub-strategies of supporting evidence generation to derisk clean energy and transmission projects, and providing technical assistance and capacity-building support to high-growth industrial provinces with energy transition planning and implementation. Please see Giving Green's strategy report for more information, including potential risks and co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: September 2026

What Is WRI Indonesia?

Established in 2014 and based in Jakarta, WRI Indonesia is an independent research institution affiliated with the World Resources Institute. It conducts research and policy analysis across forests, food systems, water, land use, climate, energy, cities, and the ocean, and works with government, business, and civil society to apply that analysis to policy and investment decisions towards low-carbon development. 

Its Energy and Sustainable Business program combines technical analysis with engagement across the institutions that shape Indonesia's power system, including the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR), the state-owned utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), the Ministry of Industry, provincial governments, and industrial energy users. WRI Indonesia has worked on clean energy market mechanisms since 2019 and began its work on electricity planning governance in 2025. Through the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator, WRI Indonesia convenes a private-sector coalition that engages PLN and MEMR on regulatory, technical, and financial barriers to low-carbon electricity procurement.

What Are We Funding, and How Could It Help Address Climate Change?

We are excited to support WRI Indonesia across two projects that address distinct challenges within Indonesia’s power sector:

Geothermal Deployment Pathways. Despite significant geothermal resource potential, geothermal project deployment in Indonesia remains limited. These projects carry high development risks, compounded by fragmented information on project pipelines, costs, and bottlenecks across government, developers, and industry. This grant would support WRI Indonesia with the following activities:

• Prioritization of barriers: identifying critical project-level barriers and constraints faced by conventional and next-generation geothermal projects using one to three geothermal deployment archetypes; the analysis will draw on inputs from MEMR, PLN, developers, and technology providers, as well as on-site visits to the Kamojang and Salak geothermal fields.
• Knowledge and decision support: producing a geothermal pathway report and policy brief, running knowledge-sharing sessions in Jakarta, presenting findings at the International Indonesia Geothermal Convention and Exhibition, and convening an international study visit for government and industry stakeholders.

Integrated Resource Planning. Indonesia's electricity-planning architecture has formal top-down linkages connecting national policy to provincial and utility-level implementation, designed to ensure alignment across levels. However, coordination remains difficult to achieve in practice, resulting in persistent gaps between national plans and regional realities. Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) addresses this gap by providing a structured framework for aligning diverse supply-side and demand-side options to meet long-term energy needs safely, reliably, and cost-effectively. This grant would support WRI Indonesia in executing the IRP through the following activities:

• Planning system assessment: evaluating existing planning frameworks, demand data, institutional roles, and coordination mechanisms at national and provincial levels against benchmarked international approaches, with recommendations validated through consultations with MEMR, PLN, the Ministry of Investment and Downstream Industry, the Ministry of Planning, and provincial governments.
• Demand visibility and adaptive planning mechanisms: developing standardized demand data-sharing protocols, demand confidence and verification mechanisms, and trigger-based criteria for reassessing planning assumptions, consolidated into a policy brief for PLN and the Directorate General of Electricity at MEMR.
• Provincial capacity building: training officials in five provinces followed by technical assistance for one province to develop an updated regional planning model. WRI Indonesia will run study visits and cross-learning sessions with WRI India, drawing on its experience integrating provincial demand into India’s planning.

The two projects address key barriers to geothermal energy development and electricity planning in Indonesia. Identifying and prioritizing geothermal energy barriers using project-level evidence—particularly for next-generation geothermal systems—will inform actionable recommendations to help policymakers advance geothermal projects. By translating findings into practical recommendations and sharing them with government and industry stakeholders, this project will build awareness and support uptake of next-generation geothermal solutions. IRP will improve visibility into future electricity demand, strengthen electricity planning coordination, and ensure that infrastructure decisions account for growing industrial demand, reducing reliance on captive coal-fired power plants as a default electricity source. Together, these projects aim to accelerate clean power deployment through next-generation geothermal and strengthen grid planning capacity to manage growing electricity demand and integrate clean energy.

Why Do We Think WRI Indonesia Will Use This Funding Well?

WRI Indonesia's proposed work builds on existing research and relationships:

• Geothermal: WRI Indonesia has scoped Indonesia's geothermal development challenges and reviewed existing research to identify the gaps this study would address. It plans to add a geothermal analyst and a clean energy supply lead to support its long-term priority to advance geothermal energy in Indonesia.
• Electricity planning: The proposed project builds on WRI Indonesia’s interviews with three provincial governments and focus group discussions with PLN, MEMR, and the Ministry of Industry. It has identified weak interconnection between planning levels, inconsistent reference data and baseline years, differing update cycles, and limited demand-modeling capacity as the main gaps.

WRI Indonesia has technical expertise in energy system analysis, technology assessment, and stakeholder engagement, and established relationships across Indonesia's energy and industrial ecosystem. With a strong record of convening through the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator, it has previously contributed to green power procurement mechanisms adopted by PLN, including Renewable Energy Certificates and Green Energy as a Service.

Philanthropic support to advance geothermal energy and electricity planning governance in Indonesia is nascent and limited. We are excited to support work that targets decision processes upstream of deployment, where research and analysis can shape larger investment flows. 

We publish grant spotlights to offer transparency to Giving Green Fund donors and resources for those interested in the impact strategies each grant supports. Giving Green believes our Top Climate Nonprofits have the greatest impact potential for large, unrestricted gifts. For several reasons, we also disburse and recommend grants to other organizations surfaced through our research process for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations.

This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

WRI Indonesia is a registered nonprofit in Indonesia.