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35,000 MW electricity project unlikely to be completed in 5 years: Minister
Powerful debate: Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Rizal Ramli says the governmentâs plan to develop power plants that will be able to produce 35,000 Megawatt (MW) of power is not something that can be achieve in five years
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Powerful debate: Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Rizal Ramli says the governmentâs plan to develop power plants that will be able to produce 35,000 Megawatt (MW) of power is not something that can be achieve in five years. (Antara) (MW) of power is not something that can be achieve in five years. (Antara)
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span class="inline inline-center">Powerful debate: Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Rizal Ramli says the government's plan to develop power plants that will be able to produce 35,000 Megawatt (MW) of power is not something that can be achieve in five years. (Antara)
Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Rizal Ramli has, for the umpteenth time, criticized the government's project to develop power plants to produce 35,000 Megawatt (MW) of power. He does not believe the government will be able to achieve this target in 5 year's time.
This critique has led him to quarrel with Vice President Jusuf Kalla, forcing President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo to intervene in the conflict and warn the senior minister not to engage in such polemics again in the future.
'After we discussed the project, it seemed unlikely that we would achieve the 35,000 MW electricity project within five years. It could be achieved in 10 years,' Rizal said as quoted by Antara in Jakarta on Monday. The minister was speaking in a press conference after he attended a coordination meeting on electricity at the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Ministry office.
Rizal said even if the 35,000 MW project could be completed within five years, there would be 21,000 MW of excess power.
'State-owned electricity company PLN will experience a surplus capacity from its average peak burden until 2019, which according to our calculations will reach 74,000 MW. There will be 21,331 MW of unused electricity,' he said.
Rizal further explained that based on existing regulations, PLN was required to buy 72 percent of the total value of electricity supplies available, regardless of whether or not it would use them.
'If the 35,000 MW project is fully implemented, electricity supplies available will exceed demand. PLN will be required to buy private electricity supplies reaching around US$10.76 billion per year,' he said.
The minister further said that within the next five years, the most realistic target the government could achieve would be the development of power plants with a total capacity of 16,000 to 18,000 MW. Such a target would be enough to serve PLN's peak burden until 2019, according to the minister.
"Such a target [18,000 MW] is already big enough. The remaining [17,000 MW] could be achieved in the next five year project,' said Rizal a meeting attended by a number of high level government officials. (rad/ebf)
