Light at the end of the power crisis tunnel in Sulawesi

Andi Hajramurni ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Makassar   |  Wed, 07/09/2008 10:48 AM  |  The Archipelago

State-owned electricity company PT PLN hopes to resolve the power crisis in South and West Sulawesi by the end of the year, a company official said Tuesday.

PLN spokesman Muhammad Yamin Loleh said the crisis would be resolved by installing generators capable of producing in total an additional 130 megawatts of electricity. The generators will be installed at the two local major coal-fired power plants in Tello and Sengkang.

At the Tello plant, PLN will install six generators, each with a 14 MW capacity, to be leased from PT Kogindo Daya Bersama, Yamin said.

A new turbine with the capacity to produce 60MW will be installed at Sengkang.

"The installation of the new turbine will be conducted as soon as possible, because agreements with the investors have been reached," he said.

Yamin said the company was confident the additional generators would be able to end the electricity shortage, which had led to blackouts throughout the regions.

The additional power supply should enable PLN to provide adequate electricity during the peak hours between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., he said.

South, West and Southeast Sulawesi were short of between 38 and 40 MW of electricity during the peak hours, and existing power plants were able to produce only 412 MW, he said.

PLN's Bakaru and Suppa power stations also supply electricity to the southern parts of Sulawesi.

"We plan to complete the installation of the additional generators at Tello and Sengkang by the end of this year," Yamin said.

For the time being, PLN can only urge its customers, especially the industrial plants, not to rely too heavily on the company, Yamin said.

Customers were also asked to use their own generators wherever possible to help reduce the demand for electricity, he said.

Yamin said installation of new generators by PLN was needed to meeting rising demand from its customer base, which was growing by between 8 and 12 percent each year.

He said the number of customers registered on the waiting list was quite big: "As of this month, there are already 76,000 (on the waiting list)."

Rising demand for electricity has led to increasing numbers of blackouts across Indonesia in the past few years despite the nation's vast natural resources.

The power crisis appears to be worsening even though only 53 percent of the archipelago's 234 million people have access to electricity, according to AFP.

Foreign investors are shying away from Indonesia because of the chronic power outages, the chairman of the country's business association said Tuesday, as Jakarta prepared for two weeks of blackouts.

Major blackouts have plagued the Java-Bali grid for the past six months, affecting large manufacturers as well as small businesses, which are being forced to shut down operations and stand down staff.

Businesses are bracing for millions of dollars in losses when the capital and its densely populated surroundings experience rotating power cuts of eight hours a day for two weeks from Friday.

"If the power cuts continue, foreign investors won't come to Indonesia. They will choose China instead," Indonesia Business Association chairman Sofjan Wanandi told AFP.

"As long as our infrastructure is not ready, foreign investors will think twice before they invest in this country."

Wanandi said Japanese investors had lost Rp 48 billion (US$5.28 million) in the past two weeks because of power cuts in regions outside Jakarta.

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