Sugar industry in Indonesia has been experiencing rapid growth in local
consumption, a decrease in domestic production, an increasingly growing import
dependency, and a rise in the cost of energy use. This study explores the efficiency
of energy use in the Indonesian sugar industry from 2010 to 2014 by applying the
input distance function based on the trans-log model to all sugar mills across the
country. The results revealed that substantial differences in energy efficiency exist
across the provinces. The average energy efficiency is nearly 0.68, with the most
efficient regions reaching nearly 0.77 and the lowest ones scoring about 0.62. The
sugar mills in the provinces of Gorontalo, Banten, South Sulawesi, and East Java
are more efficient than those of other provinces. The energy efficiency function
suggested that increasing production volume can help to achieve more efficient
energy use. Additionally, as labor and capital are substitute inputs, improvements
in capital investment (technological upgrade) may yield larger outputs and
contribute to more energy-efficient production. Meanwhile, raw materials and
capital are complementary inputs, so improvements in energy efficiency via a
larger mill size, bigger capital investment, and more efficient sourcing of raw
materials can support the national government"es production targets sustainably.
Keywords
Energy efficiency, Input distance function, Stochastic frontier analysis, Sugar industry, Translog production model