Street lights put under spotlight

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 11/14/2006 12:07 PM | Jakarta

JAKARTA: The Jakarta administration said Monday it would manage the energy expenditure of street lights by installing more meters, starting December.

In the first stage, it will place on main thoroughfares 100 of the 8,000 meters it plans to install.

""Street illumination is important in densely populated areas for obvious reasons. But we also need to save power and money,"" Governor Sutiyoso said after signing an agreement on the meters' installment with state-owned power firm PLN.

He said the city's street light electricity expenditure jumped to Rp 9.8 billion (US$1.06 million) per month last year from Rp 5.6 billion the year before, without any explanation.

Sutiyoso said the meters would read the lights' power usage accurately, saving money for the city.

The meters will replace the existing block meter system in which PLN charges the administration based on energy usage per hour, although the lights are not always on.

The two parties also agreed to implement a dimming system so that every light's brightness could be controlled. Street lights will be brighter on main thoroughfares and in densely populated areas.

There are about 195,000 street lights in the city.

Fahmi Mochtar, PLN's general manager for power distribution in Jakarta and Banten, said the city should situate more lights in housing areas since residents often ""stole"" power from PLN, causing it a total of Rp 50 billion in losses per year.

""Residents think it's OK to do that because, in a lot of cases, there are no street lights near their homes although they have paid for that,"" he said. -- JP

Comments (0) | Post comment

A | A | A |