An academic has urged the Bali administration to solve the existing power shortage problem by making it mandatory for the tourism industry and major manufacturers to use renewable energy sources.
“The administration should pursue a policy that would make investing in renewable energy an attractive and viable option for the industry,” Udayana University’s Prof. IA Dwi Giriantiri said over the weekend.
She warned the failure to establish a synergy between the administration and the private sector would further aggravate the current power shortage, which had caused repeated power blackouts across
the island.
“Five years ago we predicted that the island would face this crisis and we informed the power company accordingly,” she said, adding the warning had been largely ignored.
“Things will get worse in the future unless the local administration and the private sector find a way to work together to solve this matter.”
Obliging the tourism industry and other major manufacturers to make an investment on renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy, was a viable solution.
“Hotels could reduce their power consumption and at the same time utilize solar panels to provide electricity for certain parts of their operation,” Giriantiri said.
By using renewable energy sources, the tourism industry and major manufacturers would free up a significant amount of power, which the state power company PT. PLN could allocate to isolated regions.
“There are still many regions in the island, the rural ones with mostly low-income population, which have yet to enjoy the luxury of electricity,” Giriantiri said.
The first step the administration could take in popularizing this idea among tourism industry, she suggested, was making renewable energy sources an important criteria in tourism-related competitions.
The island gets most of its electricity from three power plants; Pesanggaran that supplies 200 megawatts (MW), Gilimanuk 134 MW, and Pemaron 98 MW. In addition, a network of undersea cables sends 200 MW of electricity from power plants in Java to Bali.
The island has a total supply of 632 MW. In reality, however, the plants’ old generators are operating below their optimum capacity and left the island with an actual supply of 565 MW.
“In 2009, peak usage had reached 532 MW. It means that when one plant stops its operation the whole system will break down.
Unfortunately, in the not-so-distant future, the peak usage will reach 619 MW.”
