When even the Dark Knight can’t save the city

At night, the city is gone. Street lamps and traffic lights are off. Office buildings, hotels, malls, cafes, houses and hospitals are completely dark. Why? A massive power outage. And don’t expect to be able to email or phone for help, because there ain’t any available. It could happen here, writes Armely Meiviana.

“Why so serious?” indeed. This isn’t Gotham where Batman the Dark Knight can stop The Joker from creating mayhem by taking control of the city’s power.

But neither is this the result of my extraordinary imagination.

This is a worst-case scenario for Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia if we continue to be blissfully ignorant about our scandalous consumption of electricity. If you think I’m exaggerating, then Google the Java–Bali five-hour blackout in August 2005. In the future, this kind of blackout might persist for entire nights. Me, I can’t stand having my mobile switched off more than a day – can you?

Because of a lack of generation capacity, since 2005, state electricity company PLN has run a campaign urging the public to use less electricity during the peak hours from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. PLN claims this campaign has successfully reduced electricity use by about 400 Megawatts during peak hours. In reality, too few of us understand why the campaign exists.

The Jamali (Java, Madura, Bali) power station, the power supplier for Jakarta and other cities in Java and Bali, has only about 18,000 Megawatts power capacity and in theory 30 percent of it is a reserve. During the peak time for electricity usage, people turn on their appliances: lights, TVs, DVD players, air conditioners, computers, phone chargers, rice cookers, microwaves, etc. If every household in Java and Bali refused to reduce its electricity consumption by about 50 watts at night, then electricity demand would exceed Jamali’s power capacity. And we are likely to have scheduled blackouts or even (gasp) a prolonged one.

So, what we can and must do to avoid the long blackout is to cut down our electricity consumption. That is the basic ground rule, but this is why you need to do it, and do it today.

At home or at the office:

1. Everyone knows that we must turn off lights when leaving a room (especially the bathroom), but what makes it so hard?
2. Why turn the light on if God gives us sunlight for free?
3. Traditional light bulbs are for the dark ages! Time to replace these with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), which are 80 percent more energy efficient.
4. You can also buy LED lamps, which have a lifespan that exceeds that of CFLs by about 10 times. Want to try them out? Just contact Mr. Antariksa from PT RDA Nusantara (www.rda-nusantara.com) on 0813 1538 5365.
5. Aircon wasn’t invented to turn the tropics into the Arctic. Set the temperature at no less than 25 °C. Every additional 1 °C will save 3–5 percent on your electricity bill.
6. Technology was invented to make our life comfortable. So don’t forget to set the TV timer before you fall asleep while watching TV. This also applies to your aircon.
7. Did you know that every appliance wastes 5 watts per hour while on standby? Cut your bill by turning off unused appliances and leaving them unplugged.
8. Did you know that 95 percent of the energy used by mobile phone chargers is wasted? Unplug your chargers once the phone’s battery is full.
9. Make your life easier. Use a power strip (or squid) with an on/off switch to turn off your appliances, rather than having to manually unplug it.
10. Never forget to turn off your computer/laptop when leaving the office. Leaving it running wastes about Rp 210,000 (for the laptop) and Rp 700,000 (for the computer) in electricity bills per year.
11. While shopping, choose energy-efficient products with a small wattage.

In the kitchen:

12. No need to leave your rice cooker on for 24 hours a day. Turn it off and unplug it once the rice/food is cooked.
13. Ceramic water dispensers are much better than the electric ones. If you need cold water, keep it in the fridge. Keep hot water in a thermos.
14. Avoid putting hot/warm food in the fridge. Cool it first.

Even if you did know the above practical tips, have you put them to use? Yeah, same here! We have to go beyond the reasoning “I can pay my energy bills anyway, so why bother?” And no need to get bogged down with considerations about how much carbon you contribute to global warming. Simply imagine the financial loss (and perhaps even more if you are undergoing surgery) you would suffer if the power went out for hours.

Who can save us from darkness if not ourselves?

Illustration by Staven Anderson 

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