BUILDING WEB-BASED DATA-INFORMATION-KNOWLEDGE APPLICATION TO SUPPORT GEOTHERMAL ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA I Gusti Agung Hevy Julia Umbara1, Triyono Hadi1, Herry Gunawan1, Agung Pamudji Widodo1 1Patra
Nusa Data, South Tangerang 15314, Indonesia
[email protected]
Keywords: Data, geothermal, information, knowledge, management, system, Thermalina. ABSTRACT The Government of Indonesia recently launched a new goal by targeting 725 MW of additions to the existing 1,403.5 MW of installed geothermal power plant capacity by 2019 and a total of 6,150 MW of additions by 2025; this represents a lot of geothermal projects and activities that will need to be carried to achieve this ambitious goal. With the huge number of areas with geothermal potential (nearly 312 areas), data preparation will be a serious issue in order to prioritize the areas that will be developed in the near term. A breakthrough in the Indonesian geothermal data management system is needed to provide easy data access and also quick data preparation both for technical and nontechnical data. The system should be well-organized and make sure that the data are readily available to support all stakeholders involved in the development process. Good data quality that is supported by easy data access will maximize the effort to critically characterize the resource potential, and probably attract more funding as the project is getting more reliable. The Thermalina web application is developed to be the first data-information-knowledge management system of Indonesian geothermal resources. The data center covers a wide range of data types encountered in geothermal projects, from general information of the area to the sophisticated geo-scientific model. Alongside with the data center, Thermalina is also equipped with a geothermal information center and a knowledge center, which are designed to accelerate the capacity building of Indonesian geothermal community. 1. INTRODUCTION Indonesia has a huge geothermal energy potential which is still largely unexploited. The 29 GW geothermal potential is located at 312 geothermal areas across the Indonesian archipelago (Ditjen EBTKE, 2015). The resources consist mostly of volcano-hosted geothermal systems that are located on the islands of Sumatra, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Banda Island and North Sulawesi, while the rest are associated with non-volcanic reservoirs located in Sulawesi, West Borneo, Bangka-Belitung and Papua (PSDG, 2015). As mentioned in Indonesia’s newest electricity procurement business plan (RUPTL) 2016, geothermal energy is planned to contribute an additional 725 MW to the energy mix in the 35,000 MW power plant project by 2019, with a total of 6,150 MW of additions by 2025 (MEMR, 2016). To avoid past failures of reaching these ambitious targets, everything needs to be more prepared this time considering that the various project stages required from exploration to electricity generation are not instantly achieved. With the target of adding an additional 6,150 MW of geothermal power in 10 years, exploration and exploitation activities will increase continuously and one of the things that should be kept in mind is the growth of geothermal data. While
geothermal data acquisition is increase in each of the regions, the volume of national geothermal data will increase simultaneously and soon become problematic if the system for storing geothermal data is not prepared. Geothermal energy development in Indonesia comprises numerous stages including preliminary survey, exploration, feasibility study, exploitation & utilization, which requires at least 5-7 years (Poernomo et al., 2015). During those processes, many types of data are collected by the operator. Indeed, the exploration stage might be the peak of data traffic density, because technical data such as geology, geochemistry, geophysics and well data are mostly taken throughout this period. In the Indonesian case, national geothermal data is usually stored on the personal computers of government officers. Some of this data are available to the public through the Central for Mineral, Coal, and Geothermal Resources Library. However, accessing the data is still old-fashioned and difficult for anyone new to the geothermal business and possibly for potential investors who will want to preview the prospects of any geothermal area. On the other hand, understanding the potential of an area using existing data is necessary for an investor to make an informed decision whether a geothermal field will be easily developed or if there are risks such as acidic fluids or slope instability which need to be anticipated. Considering data is one of the valuable national assets, centralized data storage is needed to cover the growth of geothermal data in Indonesia. In short, this storage will classify data based on its type and control data quality before it was entered into the system. Since many people are very interested to look up the details of any geothermal area, this storage should provide easy access for anyone who wants to preview the data. This type of open data system nowadays is very often seen on the internet and easily performed with a web-based data management system. Consequently, easy data access will gain much more public attention to geothermal energy, and it will also prove the reliability of geothermal resources potential, which is always mentioned as being very enormous in Indonesia. 2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THERMALINA A web-based geothermal data management system, namely Thermalina, was developed to relieve the problem of geothermal data access in Indonesia. Thermalina is a web application designed not only to be the central repository of Indonesian geothermal data, but also covers the Indonesian geothermal executive information and provides a collection of recent knowledge and technology in geothermal energy. Thermalina consists of 3 main segments; 1) Data Center, 2) Information Center, and 3) Knowledge Center, and comes with 2 language options; English and Bahasa Indonesia. This web-based application enables users to access data without Proceedings 38th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop 23 – 25 November 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
any requirement to install sophisticated software or hi-spec hardware in their computer. Rather it can be performed with a basic web browser on a personal computer with an internet connection. Patra Nusa Data (PND) as the developer of Thermalina provides access to the application through: http://thermalina.patranusa.com/. However, since the system is still under construction, all users will be directed to the beta version (English) where only limited data are available. Access to the full versions of the application will be provided soon once Thermalina is released to the public and the user registration features is available.
data QA/QC, several data attributes including well coordinate, depth unit, curve type, and top/bottom are checked. More detailed QA/QC parameters are applied in the higher QA/QC level. Along with QA/QC process, the geothermal data that stored in the Thermalina system also re-processed/re-mastered by the reservoir engineers and geoscientist. The technical team will work together with the digitations team to produce a useful data for interpretation of the geothermal resources potential. Finally, the output data will be published through Thermalina web application complete with the tags of the data originator and the summary of the data processing history.
2.1 The Flow of Geothermal Data in Thermalina Based on the Government Regulation No. 59 (2007) about the Geothermal Business Activities, all geothermal data acquired within Indonesia’s territory are owned by the country and managed by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. Therefore, all entities including government agencies, state owned enterprises and private owned enterprises are required to submit their geothermal data to the government of Indonesia. Nevertheless, strict data confidentiality is applied to particular data types; 1) the raw data is remains confidential until 4 years after the acquisition, 2) the processed data is confidential until 6 years after the establishment, and 3) the interpretation data is confidential until 8 years after the establishment. As clearly mentioned by the regulation, the government of Indonesia has the authority to manage all geothermal data in Indonesia. However, since the management of geothermal data in Indonesia is not going very well, PND has an initiative to help the government by developing Thermalina as the national geothermal data repository. The system will store, process and publish the data that submitted to the government. The U.S. Department of Energy also has developed such typical system named NGDS (Weers & Anderson, 2013); however, the scenario is quite different with Thermalina because the data in NGDS are stored at several institutions which serve as the node of the system. Meanwhile PND as the partner of PUSDATIN-MEMR (Center for Data and Information-Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources) has its own infrastructure with large storage capacity which has been serving national oil & gas data management for almost 2 decades. Those facilities could be the centralized warehouse where both digital and analog data of the Thermalina system are stored, reprocessed and published. The detail scheme of geothermal data flow in Thermalina is shown in Figure 1; when a preliminary survey assignments, exploration or exploitation activity is conducted by any entities (government agencies, state owned enterprises and private owned enterprises), the acquired data should be submitted to the Thermalina system once the confidentiality status of the data is clear. However, to make sure the submitted data is not just a big load to the storage system, a certain quality control is needed so that the data will be useful for future analysis (Weers & Anderson, 2016). PND has its own standard in maintaining the quality of the submitted data. Data QA/QC is conducted by the special department to ensure the data that uploaded and downloaded from the systems are contain valuable information and meet the expectation of the future data user. The data QA/QC process at PND is divided into several levels with particular parameters of each level. As an example; in level-1 of well
Figure 1: The flow of geothermal data in Thermalina. Support from the stakeholders of geothermal in Indonesia especially Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources is absolutely necessary to encourage data submission by the data suppliers, as it will make sure the content of the Thermalina system is updated over time. In the other hand, a routine data back-up is prepared by PND to anticipate data loss if any trouble is happened to the server. Moreover, the combination between the geosciences and IT developer team is continue to add more useful features into the application, as well as customize the user interface to fulfill the users expectation. 2.2 Data Center The Thermalina data center comprises many types of geothermal data, which are classified into several categories. Each category contains various number of data attributes as shown in Figure 2; these data attributes indicate basic data needed to do critical characterization of the resource potential. The general information of any geothermal area is described in the first two categories, namely potential area and working area, while surface and subsurface geosciences data such as geology, geochemistry, and geophysics are divided into different categories. Geophysics data itself consists of many sub-categories to accommodate various survey methods commonly used in geothermal exploration and also for monitoring activity. In the same way, well data also has its own category considering the volume of data acquired during drilling and well testing is one of the biggest in geothermal development. Proceedings 38th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop 23 – 25 November 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
The list above shows that the types of data collected in geothermal exploration and development activities are varied and relatively large in number. Almost every single thing related to geothermal projects is covered, from the electricity price to the scientific survey report. Even so, it is still possible to add any other data attributes to complete the Thermalina system. And if specific method such as thermal infra-red survey or any other remote sensing methods require more space in the system, then an extra data category could easily be added into the database.
POTENTIAL AREA WORKING AREA GEOLOGY
Data Categories
GEOCHEMISTRY Magnetic Gravity Magnetotelluric TDEM Microearthquake DC-Resistivity
Temperature Gradient WELL
0
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30
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Number of Data Attributes
Figure 2: Number of geothermal data attribute covered in each data category. The huge data attributes mentioned above is the part of geothermal data types represented in Thermalina. Common data types included within the categories are summarized below: Potential & Working Area : Area detail, resources/reserves, area license, land status, area contract, electricity/steam production, technical overview, supporting infrastructures, summary of activities. Geology
: Geological map, structure map, alteration map, tentative model, remote sensing analysis, lithology description, thin section petrography, XRD analysis, SEM analysis, etc.
Geochemistry
: Surface manifestation map, gas geochemistry analysis, isotope geochemistry analysis, water geochemistry analysis, soil geochemistry analysis, fluid (gas, water, isotope) geothermometry, geochemistry model, etc.
Geophysics
Well Data
: Survey detail, acquisition information, raw data, magnetic anomaly map, gravity anomaly map, 1D MT model, 2D MT section, 3D MT model, resistivity slice depth, MEQ hypocenter map, MEQ epicenter map, timedependent tomography map, thermal gradient well log, etc. : Well general information, elevation, depth, location, casing, well test, well model, well log, well report, well sample, etc.
The diversity of these data types may be handled by a personal computer if we working on a single small geothermal project. However, when it comes to multiple areas and multiple survey methods are applied, personal computer data storage will have a certain risk of data loss regarding malware and the hardware capacity. As it is also mentioned by Weers & Anderson (2016); that storing large amounts of data can be prohibitive both financially and practically. The Magnetotelluric data attributes shown in Figure 3 represents an example of data structure in the Thermalina data center. Several data layers are arranged to keep the data derived from a single survey period is well-organized. If there are multiple data versions (from previous or new survey) in a single area, then they will be grouped in another data layers and presented as additional tab in the application. This long path of the data layer is simplified by an easy-touse user interface called Map Query and Text Query. Those features enable the user to find required data through their favorite option, right from their personal computer or any portable device with an internet connection. 2.2.1 Map Query Map Query is a GIS-based data presentation, where the user is able to select any specific data category to be displayed on the map (Figure 4). This Map Query allows geoscientist or engineers to access the technical data (maps, models, or diagrams) of specific geothermal area to be used for manual analysis and interpretation, instead of just previewing the metadata and running an automated analysis as available in the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Geothermal Prospector (https://maps.nrel.gov/geothermalprospector). Various selecting features are available to preview the details of the data. A pop-up window (see Figure 4b) representing detailed data will appear once the user selects any data in the map using identifier tools. From this pop-up window, the user can review more detailed data that are available within the server. The Thermalina system is built not only to provide a post processing data such as maps and models, but also capable to store a set of raw data such as EDI file of MT data or shapefile of Geological Map and also complete survey report and interpretation in any readable document format. The benefit of using the Map Query option is that user can directly see the location of the data in the map, moreover the user is also able to change the base map and its layer since several base maps are available such as street, aerial, and topographic maps. Registered users will be able to customize and save the map complete with data sets to be used for their particular needs.
Proceedings 38th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop 23 – 25 November 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
Figure 3: Magnetotelluric data attributes are outlined to show the flow of data structure in Thermalina, the colors represents distinct layers of the data.
Figure 4: User interface of the Thermalina Map Query version and the pop-up window to preview more detailed data (4b). Proceedings 38th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop 23 – 25 November 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
2.2.2 Text Query Another way to browse for geothermal data in Thermalina is using the Text Query option in which geothermal data is presented as a table in each data category (see Figure 5). The list in the table is normally sorted based on the area where the data was acquired, however with this option the user is allowed to sort and filter the list of the data according to their needs. It will give the user more control of the data displayed in the table and cut the times needed to preview any particular group of data. Besides that, this Text Query user interface also has a free search tool that helps the user find data quickly by typing a specific word or phrase that is related to the data needed. The Thermalina system is developed with Oracle RDBMS database management system, and support easy data searching based on textual search features. Once the desired data is found, a pop-up window can be shown by clicking one of the data lists, and the user will be able to preview the details of each data attribute just like in the Map Query version. Easy data access provided by the Thermalina webapplication will enable the geothermal community to look deeper into potential geothermal resources in Indonesia. Hence, the availability and comprehensiveness of this data system will raise the confidence of potential investors to enter the Indonesian geothermal energy market. However, control of data quality before it is entered to Thermalina system is absolutely necessary, as it will influence the accuracy of geothermal system characterization, which is needed for the success of geothermal area development. 2.3 Information Center Newcomers to the Indonesian geothermal industry usually will look for information about how far the development has been running, what are the recent targets of the government and private entities for next 5 or 10 years ahead, where is the best green field to be explored and what kinds of laws and regulations are applied in Indonesia. Nowadays this information is found in several places and is available in multiple versions, which makes it difficult to determine which one contains the most up-to-date information. The Thermalina Information Center was established to provide centralized and up-to-date information about geothermal energy utilization in Indonesia. The type of information that available in this application is reflected in 8 sub-menus summarized below: Potential Area
: 312 geothermal potential areas in Indonesia are classified into 9 regions and each region contains information about the list of geothermal potential areas available complete with its recent exploration status (see Figure 6). Any entities that want to explore one of these areas can propose a preliminary survey initiative to the government of Indonesia.
Prospect Ranking
: Geothermal areas all over Indonesia are ranked based on its possible reserves. The user can filter the ranking based on the region where the geothermal area is located.
Working Area
: This sub-menu contains brief information about the distribution
of geothermal areas that are available for any private entities who want to develop geothermal power plants by joining an auction held by the government of Indonesia. Installed Capacity
: This sub-menu summarizes information about the operator companies, license holder, and the capacity of the power plants.
Production
: The statistics of steam and electricity production from geothermal utilization in Indonesia is previewed in this sub-menu. Annual steam and electricity production from several fields were combined and presented in the bar chart.
Laws & Regulations : The recent laws and regulations about geothermal energy exploration and utilization in Indonesia are listed in this submenu to be official guidance for any geothermal activities. Information about electricity prices generated from geothermal areas in Indonesia is also covered within this sub-menu. Geothermal Milestone: Geothermal resources in Indonesia have already been investigated long before the nation was independent. The history from the first geothermal exploration to the most recent well drilled is explained in this sub-menu. News
: The Thermalina Information Center is linked with one of the best geothermal news centers to ensure the user is provided with the latest talk about geothermal energy in town.
All information summarized in the Thermalina Information Center is presented with brief, clear and easily understood illustrations, so that user who is not really familiar with technical data will find it as an alternative to learn about Indonesian geothermal resources potential and the development activity. Nevertheless, this menu is also connected to the data center so it will be possible for any user to check data availability once they found any interesting information about geothermal energy in Indonesia. Besides serving as a resource for the geothermal energy community, this Information Center would also help to promote the importance of geothermal energy to the wider local society across Indonesia. As more of the public know about the benefits of renewable energy, the tendency to use geothermal as the source of their electricity consumption will increase. Moreover, extensive socialization is needed to avoid public opposition to projects that result from the misconception that geothermal energy development is similar to a mining activity with high environmental risk.
Proceedings 38th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop 23 – 25 November 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
Figure 5: The appearance of the Thermalina Text Query version; data lists shown above are the result of data searching by using the free search feature available in the bottom left corner of the application.
Figure 6: Indonesian geothermal potential areas are classified into 9 regions; above is the example of North Sumatera Region geothermal resources potential.
Proceedings 38th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop 23 – 25 November 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
2.4 Knowledge Center Although geothermal energy is naturally renewable, participation of human resources is still needed to make sure the system will sustainably safe both for environment and human needs. Responsible utilization of geothermal energy requires good capability on the part of the people in charge to maintain the natural fluid cycle in the reservoir for a long period of time. The Thermalina Knowledge Center has the mission to create a place for knowledge sharing between people who are interested in geothermal energy utilization across the world, so that more people will consider geothermal energy for the near future especially in a developing country like Indonesia. The Thermalina Knowledge Center could be the extensions of the U.S. Open EI (http://en.openei.org/wiki/Gateway:Geothermal) for the Indonesia and South East Asia segment, because it will provides knowledge that specific to the characteristic of the geothermal system in Indonesia and available in Bahasa Indonesia. As an initial step, an e-library is already equipped as part of the Thermalina web application. This library consists of various article topics. The topic is not only about technical aspects, but also covers non-technical aspects such as social problem near geothermal areas, economic analysis of geothermal projects, and also regulations related to geothermal energy. Non-technical aspects are concerned because some geothermal projects in Indonesia were blocked not because of technical difficulties, but because of the failure to engage and encourage the local community to use geothermal energy as a replacement for fossil fuel energy sources. Both technical and non-technical knowledge are classified in 6 categories such as geothermal prospect, integrated study, surface geology, geochemistry, geophysics and drilling. The system is designed to accommodate knowledge from many sources, so that users of the application are also able to submit their knowledge and have it reviewed by an expert of the subject matter.
will open the eyes of researchers all over the world to the potential of the resources, as the more they understand about the system the more they will gain confidence to invest in geothermal energy utilization in Indonesia. While the variety of data attributes in Thermalina Data Center are continuously updated to cover every aspect of geothermal operations, the Information Center and Knowledge Center applications could be the solution to mitigate the social risk which occasionally occurs as an obstacle for geothermal exploration and exploitation in Indonesia. It will tell the benefit of geothermal energy relative to fossil fuels, and provide education about its eco-friendliness to help avoid opposition from uninformed local community members near the geothermal area. The variety of knowledge sets which are available online in the Thermalina knowledge center will be the platform for professionals and students alike across the Indonesian archipelago to learn and share knowledge and experience in geothermal energy utilization. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work is a geothermal data management project by Patra Nusa Data. The authors are grateful to the management of Patra Nusa Data for permission to publish this paper. REFERENCES Directorate General of New & Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation-Indonesia (Ditjen EBTKE): The Statistic Book of EBTKE 2015 (in Bahasa Indonesia), Jakarta, Indonesia. (2016). Geological Agency (PSDG): Non-Volcanic Geothermal System in Sulawesi (in Bahasa Indonesia), Jakarta, Indonesia. (2015). Geothermal Prospector, U. S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 29 September 2016, Web: (https://maps.nrel.gov/geothermal-prospector). Government of Indonesia: Government Regulation No. 59/2007 about the Geothermal Business Activities (in Bahasa Indonesia), Jakarta, Indonesia. (2007).
Furthermore, the Thermalina Knowledge Center is designed to support geothermal capacity building in Indonesia through various sets of events. Focus group discussions, panel discussions, knowledge harvesting, community of practice, and after-action reviews are planned to be held on a regular basis. This will ensure that valuable experience of any geothermal expert around the world will be summarized to serve as examples of best practices for other experts who face similar problems in other geothermal projects.
Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR)Indonesia, PT PLN (Persero)’s Electricity Procurement Business Plan for 2016-2025 (in Bahasa Indonesia), Ministerial Decree. (2016).
The media used in knowledge sharing is not merely in the form of articles, but also presented using other interactive media that fit to nowadays technology such as; voice recordings, animations and video tutorials. An interesting learning experience with various media will make sophisticated knowledge easier to be learned and shared with others. The more people who learn about geothermal energy, the more they will realize that it is a good option and readily available now beneath the earth’s surface.
Poernomo, A., Satar, S., Effendi, P., Kusuma, A., Azimudin, T., Sudarwo, S.: An Overview of Indonesia Geothermal Development – Current Status and Its Challenges, Proc. World Geothermal Congress 2015, Melbourne, Australia. (2015).
3. CONCLUSIONS This paper explains that data access plays a significant role in the development of geothermal energy in Indonesia, and that it is serves as the bridge between funding from investors and geothermal areas promoted by the government. The application of the latest web-based data management methods in the development of Thermalina will tackle the difficulty of geothermal data access in Indonesia. The easy availability of Indonesian geothermal data over the internet
OpenEI: Open Energy Information, U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 29 September 2016, Web: (http://en.openei.org/wiki/Gateway:Geothermal).
Weers J., Anderson A.: Increasing Access to Federal Data through the DOE Geothermal Data Repository, Proc. Geothermal Resources Council Transactions 2013, Vol. 37 p. 577-580, Davis, California. (2013). Weers J., Anderson A.: The DOE Geothermal Data Repository and the Future of Geothermal Data, Proc. 41st Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering 2016, Stanford, California. (2016).
Proceedings 38th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop 23 – 25 November 2016 Auckland, New Zealand
