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luminum producer PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) on Wednesday announced it had supplied 105 megawatts of electricity in North Sumatra as part of an effort to resolve recurring power outages in the province.

Inalum president director Sahala Sijabat said the supply from Inalum was provided as a free contribution to help resolve the power crisis in the region, adding that Inalum had been supplying power to the province from Nov. 28, 2013, until now.

'€œThis is a form of our commitment to help overcome the power crisis in North Sumatra,'€ Sahala told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He said Inalum had additionally supplied 1.5 MW to state power company PLN in Porsea, Humbang Hasundutan regency.

'€œThat'€™s the best we could do to help. This is probably due to the good condition of our eight power generators and the high water level in Lake Toba,'€ said Sahala.

Inalum operates a hydro power plant along the Asahan River, the only river flowing from Lake Toba into the Malacca Strait.

Sahala said Inalum planned to build a new 600-MW steam power plant to support its increased production target from 260,000 tons to 650,000 tons of aluminum annually.

'€œThe power plant is still being planned. It'€™s feasibility study is expected to be completed this year,'€ said Sahala.

PLN has imposed rolling blackouts across the province in the past few months due to an electricity deficit. The situation started to improve in January, but residents are now again facing blackouts since generators at the Belawan Seaport and the Labuhan Angin in North Tapanuli began malfunctioning.

Meanwhile, the North Sumatra provincial administration and PLN agreed this week on several short and long-term solutions to the worsening power outages in the province.

In the short term, the provincial administration and PLN have agreed to increase the power supplied by Inalum and to complete repairs on a number of power plants.

PLN Java, Bali and Sumatra operations director Iga Ngurah Adnyana said the additional power supply from Inalum would be realized before March 10 this year, adding the total added capacity from Inalum was 135 MW.

'€œTo realize the additional supply, we will request assistance from the government and the House of Representatives,'€ Adnyana said, adding that PLN would also speed up maintenance and repairs of the 180-MW gas-fired power plant in Belawan. He said the plant was expected to resume normal operations by March 10.

'€œBy then, we hope power in North Sumatra will already be normal,'€ he added.