Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia will immediately establish the Nuclear Energy Program Implementation Organization (NEPIO) this year after the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry submits a statement to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria.

"Next week, we will submit a statement to the IAEA in Vienna about our commitment to establish NEPIO," the ministry's director general of New, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation, Eniya Listiani Dewi, stated here on Monday.

"NEPIO is a non-binding and non-structure organization whose role is to supervise the implementation of (the national) nuclear program," she highlighted.

The establishment of NEPIO is carried out following the approval of the National Energy Policy, with a target to develop a nuclear power plant in Indonesia, with a capacity of 250 megawatts, by 2032.

Dewi explained that this organization is tasked with identifying, planning, and overseeing the construction process as well as drafting regulations governing the safety of the facility in order to optimize the performance of a nuclear power plant that is to be built.

"NEPIO is an organization that we need because it can bind the president. If the construction will definitely take a period of not one cabinet period, but two periods, at least it will only go on-grid in 2032, so it is still nine years ahead," she noted.

Meanwhile, the ministry's head of the Center for Survey and Testing of Electricity, Harris (one name), stated that Indonesia planned to produce uranium domestically.

However, the country will use imported uranium for the construction of the first nuclear power plant, he said.

"For how long we will import it, of course, it will depend on how we transfer the knowledge to be able to produce uranium commercially in Indonesia," he explained.

The Indonesian government plans to build a 250-megawatt on-grid nuclear power plant facility by 2032, based on the target set in the draft revision of the Government Regulation on the National Energy Policy.

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Translator: Ahmad Muzdaffar Fauzan, Yashinta Difa
Editor: Tia Mutiasari
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