State power utility PT PLN needs to spend around Rp 2.5 trillion (US$276.32 million) to buy more diesel in a bid to avoid blackouts in western Indonesia.
The PLN operational director for western Indonesia, Harry Jaya Pahlawan, said Tuesday the company would have to rent additional power plants, which all run on High Speed Diesel (HSD). PLN’s western Indonesia system covers Sumatra and West Kalimantan.
“Until the end of this year, we will need an additional 500,000 kiloliters of High Speed Diesel. With the current price of HSD at Rp 5,000 per liter, we estimate that the total additional spending for the fuel will reach Rp 2.5 trillion,” Harry said.
Harry refused to explain how the company would finance the additional spending. Previously the government had allocated Rp 54.5 trillion in subsidies in the 2010 state budget, a 44.2 percent increase from last year.
PLN plans to rent 30 HSD-fired power plants with a total capacity of 361.5 megawatts (MW) for the area this year. The rented power plants range in size between 1 MW and 30 MW in capacity.
Nasser Iskandar, PLN’s head of power plants division for western Indonesia said the rented power plants would be used to support the power supply to the PLN grid.
“We will put the power plants in isolated areas,” Nasser said.
The rented power plants will be distributed in all the provinces covered by the system, but Nanggroe Aceh Darussallam, Riau, Riau Islands, and Bangka Belitung provinces get most of this extra generation capacity.
Aside from renting small power plants, PLN also plans to buy excess power from other companies to help supply power to remote areas. “We will buy as much as 75 MW of excess power,” he said.
Harry added that the rented power plants and the purchasing of excess power would only be short term solutions to meet the company’s goal to set the area free from blackouts by June this year.
As for the long term solutions, PLN expects to immediately operate several new power plants as well as upgrading the capacity of existing power plants. In 2010, PLN expects to operate seven new power plants in the area.
