City water operators PT Aetra Air Jakarta and PT PAM Lyonnaise (Palyja) have slammed state power company PT PLN for the recent blackouts that have disrupted water supply, which relies mostly on electrical pumps.
"Our service's have been severely disrupted," Palyja spokeswoman Meyritha Maryanie told The Jakarta Post over the phone Wednesday.
"We now need around four hours to get water to customers."
Aetra president director Syahril Japarin was similarly put out.
He said customers who lived on the outskirts of the company's distribution network were experiencing longer water supply disruptions.
"We experience an average one-hour power cut each day, and it takes four hours or more to recover to the point of normal distribution," he said, adding Aetra's monthly electricity bill was Rp 3.5 billion (US$370,000).
Syahril said purchasing generators was not a feasible investment because the cost passed on to customers would be huge.
Meyritha said Palyja customers in the northern part of the capital, far from the main pipe network, suffered the most because they had to wait longer to for the water supply to normalize and reach their area.
Palyja serves 410,000 customers in the western and northern parts of Jakarta, while Aetra serves 390,000 customers in the eastern part of the city.
Palyja has complained of a total 121 hours of power cuts at its pumping stations in October, following the Sept. 29 fire that gutted a PLN substation in Cawang, East Jakarta.
Meyritha said data on power cuts in November was not yet available, but added one pumping station in Daan Mogot, West Jakarta, had experienced 50 hours without power between Nov. 2 and 7.
"We have generators for the low-wattage equipment, but it's not feasible to hook up generators to machines that pump more than 2,000 liters of water a second," she said.
She added Palyja had sought priority listing for electricity supply during the blackouts, much like hospitals.
Purnomo Willy, PLN's Jakarta and Tangerang branch general manager, said it was difficult to single out the water companies for priority listing among the utility's thousands of other customers.
"When we switch off a power station, we can't choose which customers will be affected," he told the Post by phone.
He said PLN could not provide generators for the water operators, as it did for public service buildings such as hospitals, because the two companies consumed huge amounts of electricity.
"But we'll look into the possibility of separating their power supply from that of other customers," Purnomo said.
Aetra operates three pumping stations: two in Buaran and one in Pulo Gadung, all in East Jakarta. The Buaran pumps each have a flow rate of 5,000 liters of water a second, while the Pulo Gadung pump has a flow rate of 4,000 liters a second.
Palyja has two pumping stations in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta, with a total flow rate of 5,800 liters a second, as well as four booster pumps at Jembatan Besi, Gedong Panjang, Cengkareng and Daan Mogot, all in West Jakarta.
The company also has a reservoir in Cireundeu Permai, Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta, and another in Kelapa Dua, Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta.
