Power supply problems overcome by October 2010

Power supply problems overcome by October 2010 : Minister

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 00:05 WIB | Economic & Business | | Viewed 134 time(s)
Jakarta
(ANTARA News) - The electricity supply problems in a number of regions
in Indonesia will be overcome by October 2010, Coordinating Minister
for Economic Affairs Hatta Radjasa said here on Monday.

"Outages
in a number of regions will be overcome in the next 10 months," he said
in his evaluation of economic performance in 2009 and prospects for
2010.

He said the state electricity company PLN would take steps
to overcome electricity crisis in several regions by among others
continuing the purchase of excess power of other companies.

In terms of finance, he said, the government would improve PLN's finance by increasing its funding to reach Rp30 trillion.

The
additional funding would be taken from the increasing margin from
formerly five percent against the principle production cost (BPP) to
eight percent.

With the BPP in 2009 reaching Rp140 trillion an increase of one percent in margin would need Rp11.2 trillion.

By increasing the margin from five to eight percent it means PLN's margin would increase from Rp7 trillion to Rp11.2 trillion.

"Based
on one percent increase in margin PLN will be able to borrow up to Rp7
trillion and so with an increase of three percent PLN's debt capacity
will reach Rp21 trillion," he said.

The rest, he said, would be covered with the government's capital participation totalling Rp10 trillion.

"The additional Rp30 trillion funds will make PLN healthy and at the same time able to overcome outages this year," he said.

As
the government will not raise the electricity tariff the increased
margin would be covered by subsidy hike. "We will discuss it with the
House of Representatives," he said.

PLN recorded by October 2009
11 of 24 national electricity systems suffered a deficit of power by
460.2MW.Only two systems under normal conditions and 11 others are on
alert, he said.

He said PLN categorizes its power system into
three namely normal when no outage occurs and operational reserves are
bigger than the biggest unit of generators, alert when no outage occurs
but the potential is there because operational reserves are smaller
than the biggest unit of generators and then deficit when outages occur
because power is smaller than the peak burden or transmission system is
disrupted.

Eleven systems detected to suffer a deficit are the
southern part of Sumatra (198.3 MW), South Sulawesi (145.7 MW), the
northern part of Sumatra (70MW), Minahasa (27.51 MW), Tanjung Pinang
(7.4 MW), Palu (5.96 MW), Kendari (2.1 MW), Poso (1.71 MW), Sampit (0.8
MW), Ambon (0.56 MW) and Singkawang (0.16 MW).

The systems that
are normal are the Java-Bali and Bontang while the systems under alert
are Bangka, Belitung, Batam, Pontianak, Lombok, Barito, Mahakam,
Gorontalo, Kupang, Ternate and Jayapura.(*)

Lombok is shown as "systems under alert". Yet Lombok has power cuts and also long lead times to get new connections.

Does this mean:

1. The conditions are really bad in other parts of the country?
2. The government will continue to subsidize?

Then is the logical concludion: the government will control the supply and demand for power for a very long time?

Josi

Ahhh . I didnt read it correctly. I thought Lombok was one of the areas that was going to see an improvement!

They are building a new one on the coast near Jeranjang(gunung pengsong area).I believe it will be a powerplant with a capacity of 25 MW.They have calculated that Lombok needs 25MW for the next years but in my opion if you know that you need 25MW for the next years and that it will be not enough for the future why don,t build one of 50MW straightaway.I think it,s cheaper.I don,t know how far the they are with the construction of this powerplant but the last time i visited this spot,I think 6 months ago,they where still preparing the land where the powerplant will be build.If they need this powerplant for the new airport they must be hurry up otherwise they need candles to light up the runway.