What the minister said
Zulkifli Hasan, Indonesia's coordinating minister for food, spoke on the evening of Thursday, October 15, 2026, at the Bali governor's residence, Jaya Sabha, in Denpasar. The occasion was not about energy. It was the gala dinner of the annual scientific meeting of the Indonesian Oceanographers' Association. Bali Governor Wayan Koster welcomed him.
While discussing how to protect the sea from litter, Hasan brought up the waste-to-electricity project. He voiced hope that the plant will be ready in 2027 and added that October or November would be ideal. This is a remark, not an official timetable. The report names no contractor, no cost and no commissioning date set in a document.
What the project is
PSEL stands for pengolahan sampah menjadi energi listrik, meaning turning garbage into electricity. Work on the Denpasar Raya plant started in July 2026 in Pedungan village, in the South Denpasar district. It belongs to a national drive to speed up waste-to-energy plants, which the central government is pushing under Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 109 of 2025.
The plant is designed to take in 1,500 tons of waste a day. The logic is simple: refuse that would otherwise go to a landfill is processed, and the resulting energy feeds the grid.
The numbers Hasan gave
According to the minister, the facility could light roughly 50,000 homes and create about 2,000 jobs. He framed it with an if: once the project is built. We report these as stated figures, not as proven output of a working plant.
He gave no capacity in megawatts. Without it, the 50,000-homes estimate cannot be checked. No tariff for selling the power to the grid was mentioned either.
Why garbage matters on the island
Bali hosts millions of visitors, and waste is a practical issue here, not an abstract one. The volume of refuse rises with the tourist flow, and collection and disposal have long been a concern for authorities and residents. The minister tied the project to protecting the ocean, which he described as a source of food, wealth and biodiversity for the country.
In areas around Denpasar and Badung, where villas and guesthouses cluster, how well trash collection works shapes daily life: how clean the streets are, how the area smells near a property and what guests remember.
What remains unknown
The source describes intentions rather than results. It is unclear whether the plant will open fully in 2027 or in phases, which technology will be used and how emissions will be handled. Those details usually decide how neighboring communities receive such a facility.
For now, three levels should be kept apart: a fact (construction began in July 2026), project parameters (1,500 tons a day) and expectations (a 2027 start, 50,000 homes, 2,000 jobs). Only the first is backed by action on the ground. The rest are statements.