Desy Nurhayati and Wasti Atmodjo, THE JAKARTA POST, DENPASAR | Mon, 11/09/2009 1:05 PM
Many small hotels on the resort island of Bali are taking measures to deal with expected power blackouts.
The response was made after the Bali office of the state-owned electricity company PT PLN announced the island will face electricity blackouts from Oct. 10 to Dec. 6, 2009 due to a shortage caused by maintenance work on the Gilimanuk power plant.
Pastika, the assistant manager of Matahari Bungalow in Legian, said the 60-room facility would stock more diesel fuel to keep its generator sets on, should the blackouts become prolonged. "Actually we have no problem with the outages as we use generators. We just need to ensure there is enough diesel stock so we can still provide full services for our guests," he said.
The electricity firm announced a day-to-day schedule and the list of areas that would face the blackouts, which will take place from 6 p.m to 11 p.m everyday. Each location could face a power cut four times during the maintenance period.
The company also called on its 740,000 customers to reduce electricity use by 100 watts in every household during peak hours.
Mid-December to January, during the Christmas and New Year's Eve festive season, is traditionally the busiest period for the island's tourism industry.
During that period the island's starred and budget hotels usually enjoy a high occupancy rate of up to 100 percent as foreign and domestic visitors flock to the island.
Agung Bagus, owner of Fibra Inn, a Bungalow located in Ubud, said the small inn would buy diesel machines to supply power for water and refrigerators. It does not use generator sets to supply electricity during blackouts.
"We usually use candles for our rooms whenever a blackout occurs, and the guests have no problem with it, but the problem is that we should keep the water tap and the refrigerators on," Agung said.
"That's why we will provide some small diesel machines to ensure water supply and to keep the refrigerators on, just in case the blackouts still occur in the upcoming holiday season."
Agung said there had been four blackouts in October.
Ratna Eka Soebrata, from the Bali Tourism Board, criticized PT PLN for not anticipating the two-month long power cut, saying it would inconvenience ztourists.
"How can tourist operators provide their best services if they have blackouts. Not all of them can afford to have generators," she said. "There should have been anticipatory measures for this downtime, since electricity is a basic need," Ratna added.
Spokesman for PT PLN's Bali branch, Agung Mastika, said he was optimistic the maintenance work would be completed in the scheduled time.
However, he urged the public to keep using electricity in an efficient manner.
Mastika said that on normal days, the company could supply the island with a total of 582 MW of electricity, 130 MW of which is generated by the Gilimanuk power plant.
Meanwhile, the demand for power can reach 493 MW. "With the Gilimanuk plant under maintenance, we have a supply deficit of 41 MW."
