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Rini urges Pertamina, PLN to team up for better electricity services
State-owned Enterprises (SOE) Minister Rini Soemarno has called on state oil and gas giant Pertamina and state-owned electricity company PLN to strengthen collaboration in an effort to provide customers with more affordable electricity rates.
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Powering the nation: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (second right), Papua Governor Lukas Enember (second left), State-owned Enterprises Minister Rini M. Soemarno (right) and PLN president director Sofyan Basri push a button, marking the start of the construction of six power plant projects in Papua and West Papua on Oct. 17. The power plants will start operations in 2019. (JP/Nethy Dharma Somba)
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span class="m_-6427114471789924375gmail-m4645802205848364015s1">State-owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno has called on state oil and gas giant Pertamina and state-owned electricity company PLN to strengthen collaboration in an effort to provide customers with more affordable electricity rates.
“The collaboration between two giant companies, Pertamina and PLN, should be made stronger. We need oil and gas, but we also need electricity so we can offer the best services to our people,” she said in her opening remarks at the Pertamina Energy Forum 2016 on Tuesday in Jakarta.
Rini urged Pertamina and PLN to intensify efforts to improve cost efficiency for gas-based and diesel-fueled power plants.
"PLN uses both gas-based and diesel-fueled power plants to generate electricity in remote areas. Collaboration would help reduce transportation costs [for gas and diesel]," she provided an example.
Rini added that both companies could also improve their existing collaborations in geothermal energy through the continuous development of Pertamina’s subsidiary, PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE).
“Geothermal energy from PGE can only be made into electricity. If Pertamina drills, while PLN says it does not want to buy the energy, then how it is going to work? So, teamwork is important,” she said.
Indonesia is currently running the ambitious 35,000 megawatt (MW) electricity procurement project, in hopes of increasing the national electrification ratio to 97 percent by 2019, as well as to meet the continuously increasing demand for electricity from household customers and industry players. (win/hwa)
