Hyundai Motor to Establish a Waste-to-Hydrogen Ecosystem in Indonesia

On April 15, Hyundai Motor Group announced at the Global Hydrogen Summit in Jakarta that it will build Southeast Asia's first waste-to-hydrogen (W2H) ecosystem in West Java, Indonesia. The project is based on Indonesia's national hydrogen energy strategic plan and is jointly promoted by the Indonesian Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of National Development Planning and the state-owned energy company PT Pertamina. It is planned to build a full industrial chain demonstration system covering hydrogen production, storage, transportation and refueling by 2027.

The core site of the project is the Sari Mukti landfill in West Java. The facility processes 1,200 tons of domestic waste in Bandung every day, but has long faced environmental safety risks. Hyundai Motor will introduce South Korea's proven Rotem steam methane reforming technology to convert landfill biogas into low-carbon hydrogen and distribute it through Pertamina's existing natural gas pipeline network. The supporting hydrogen refueling station will directly use the system for energy supply to form a closed-loop production system.

As an extension of environmental governance, Hyundai Motor has joined hands with the international organization "Good Neighbor" to implement a community transformation plan, focusing on solving local drinking water safety and medical facility shortages, and has cooperated with SejinG&E to upgrade the landfill disaster prevention system to reduce the risk of secondary disasters such as floods and fires.

Jaeha Park, head of Hyundai Motor's hydrogen energy business, said that the project marks the first overseas replication of its mature hydrogen energy model in Chungju, Cheongju and other places in South Korea. Through the technology output of the exclusive brand HTWO, the group plans to build Indonesia into an ASEAN hydrogen energy hub and achieve regional promotion of organic waste hydrogen production systems in the next three years.

It is worth noting that the plan has released a signal at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January this year. As a strategic fulcrum of Hyundai Motor in Southeast Asia, its successful implementation will lay the foundation for the large-scale application of transportation tools such as hydrogen heavy trucks. With the advancement of the construction of the new capital Nusantara zero-carbon city, the W2H model of government-enterprise cooperation may become a model for energy transformation in emerging markets.