Determining the Value of the proposed Indonesia Upper Cisokan Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Power Project

The Upper Cisokan Pumped Storage (UCPS) Hydroelectric Power Project will be Indonesia’s first pumped storage project, with total generating capacity of 1,040 MW. The World Bank together with AIIB served as primary funders of the project via large scale sovereign lending facilities to PLN. From 2020-2021, Castlerock, together with its subcontractors ECA and Quadran, prepared an economic evaluation of the UCPS project for the World Bank using the Plexos power system planning tool.

• Castlerock introduced various operational constraints into the long-term modelling to help ensure that the addition of variable renewable energy generation (principally photovoltaics) in the optimal plan did not result in technically infeasible cycling of thermal plants.
• The long-term analysis demonstrated the value of the project in terms of capacity and energy arbitrage, while the short-term analysis confirmed the energy arbitrage value and also captured the value of ancillary services provided by the project.
• Castlerock also developed several sensitivity cases, including cancellation of planned coal-fired power plant life extension projects and the introduction of utility-scale batteries.
• Castlerock assisted PLN in its approval process to obtain a sovereign credit support for World Bank and AIIB loans.