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Electricity use rises slightly amid low consumption
Electricity use nationwide rose less than 1
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lectricity use nationwide rose less than 1.93 percent in the first nine months of the year, driven mainly by slowing growth in electricity consumption in Java and Bali.
Figures from state electricity firm PLN showed that electricity use reached 148 terrawatt hours (TWh) during the January to September period, compared to around 145 TWh in the same period of last year. Electricity use has been slowing this year partly because of tightened industry consumption amid weakening economic growth.
Use grew at the slowest level in Java and Bali, with only 0.97 percent registered in September this year. Higher growth was seen in Sumatra with 6.04 percent registered in September.
'We are expecting higher consumption in the last quarter of the year, which will hopefully be driven by the implementation of the government's economic package,' PLN head of marketing division Benny Marbun said.
Under the recent economic stimulus package released earlier this month, the government decided to incentivize power consumption partly by offering a 30 percent discount on electricity usage from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m., alongside the relaxation of payment obligations for outstanding electricity bills.
Benny said PLN expected that the economic package could boost the growth of the company's electricity sales to 3 percent by the year's end, which would be higher compared to the firm's earlier target of 2.5 percent before the stimulus was launched.
'In year-to-date, consumption from industry has been low. Therefore, we are expecting that incentives in the economic package will encourage their business. We are particularly looking to register higher consumption in the textile industry,' he said.
The textile industry is estimated to benefit from the policy because it will be among the industries running 24 hours a day, meaning that it will enjoy lower power bills when it operates at night until early in the morning. However, the impact on overall production costs was expected to be as slight as 0.02 percent, Indonesian textile association's Benny Soetrisno said earlier.
Similar concerns were also raised by the steel industry, which has registered low electricity consumption following a slowdown the in the global and national economic outlook.
Electricity consumption contributes about 20 percent to total production costs in the steel industry, according to Ismail Mandry from the steel association.
'However, the amount of discount cannot be translated into the production cost if we run the steel furnace 24 hours a day. It will be a relief of roughly 6 percent,' Ismail said.
Even with 3 percent growth by the year's end, PLN will likely fail to meet its initial target of booking 216.39 TWh in electricity usage this year. The initial target was considered by many to be too optimistic as it would equate to a dramatic 9 percent increase compared to the total consumption of 198.6 TWh in 2014.
For next year, under the state budget, PLN has also set a high target of 232.62 TWh in electricity consumption nationwide.
