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Power procurement program still a go
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Two employees of state-owned electricity firm PLN work at a main relay station. (Kontan/Cheppy A. Muchlis)
P
ower procurement remains a priority three years into President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration, as the government brushes off concerns that the program hurts the finances of state-owned electricity firm PLN.
Jokowi on Thursday inaugurated the construction of the Jawa 7 and the Jawa 9 and 10 coal-fired power plants, a US$4.8-billion project touted to be among the biggest in Southeast Asia, with a total installed capacity of 4,000 megawatts (MW).
He also inaugurated the operation of the Banten coal-fired power plant, with an installed capacity of 660-MW.
The new Jawa power plants boast so-called ultra-supercritical boilers — a technology that makes them more efficient in coal usage than conventional power plants.
Once the power plants start operating between 2020 and 2022, they are estimated to be able to power more than 4 million households.
In his speech, Jokowi emphasized that the government’s ambitious program to procure an additional 35,000 MW of electricity-generating capacity by 2019 was important for increasing welfare and creating jobs for residents living around the facilities.
“[We need electricity] so that our children can study at night [...] and so there is investment in sectors that need large amounts of electricity, like hotels and manufacturing,” he said during the inauguration in Serang, Banten.
