SOLAR power developers are finally tapping into Indonesia's rich potential to generate power from the sun, but the biggest beneficiary of their proposed projects will be the archipelago's wealthy neighbour Singapore.

Indonesia is ripe for developing renewable energy. A local think tank last year estimated that the country could theoretically generate almost 20 million megawatts of solar power, more than double the combined capacity of every power plant in the world.

But despite having the world's fourth-largest population and ample amounts of sun-soaked land near the equator, Indonesia has one of the smallest renewable energy footprints in the world because of an oversupply of subsidised coal power plants choking its grid. It has about 210 megawatts installed, less than Arctic Circle-straddling Finland, according to clean energy researchers at BloombergNEF.