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ew Year celebrations ended in North Sumatra early on Sunday after power outages occurred just hours after 2017 was ushered in. People who were still reveling in the new year at city centers became disappointed and slowly went home when state electricity company PLN was forced to cut power at 2:44 a.m. M. Nur Albanjari, a businessman, said he was disappointed with the power cut just after New Year’s Eve because he was in the middle of a party with his employees and friends.

“It all went south because of the blackout. It was like a bad New Year’s gift,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Hariz Azhar, a resident from Langkat, also complained about the blackout on the first day of the year.

“The blackout has been going on for 12 hours now. We can’t do anything,” said Haris at the time, adding that there still was no electricity in his area.

Many regions across the country continue to experience regular power outages, including in Java.

The government’s target to achieve 35,000 megawatts (MW) will only bring the nation’s energy consumption per capita to 1,200 kilowatts per hour (kWh), much lower than Vietnam that currently has achieved 1,600 kWh.

Today, Indonesia consumes 900 kWh per capita, more than half of which is provided by coal, with very little support from renewable energy.

Jayapura, Papua, continually experiences rolling blackouts lasting up to six hours at a time due to a power generation shortfall of between 10 and 15 MW.

The outages were still occurring despite President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo having unveiled six new electricity infrastructure projects in Papua and West Papua in October.

PLN North Sumatra spokesperson Mustafrizal earlier said outages would be experienced throughout Monday in North Sumatra and Aceh.

“We didn’t plan the outages. It was because the hydro power plant in Belawan suffered a disruption,” he said.

The power plant, with a capacity of 350 MW, was completely shut down because of the issue.

Mustafrizal added that disruption in gas supply also stopped other power plants in Belawan, as well as the power shortages overburdened plants in Pangkalan Susu, causing further outages to Aceh.

“Until now, rolling outages are still happening in Aceh and North Sumatra. We don’t know when it will return to normal,” said Mustafrizal.

The power supply for the two provinces is currently provided by plants from PLN in Riau and those that belong to State-owned aluminium producer PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum), which is also located in North Sumatra.

Mustafrizal explained that in an attempt to end the outages in North Sumatra and Aceh, PLN’s North Sumtra division had connected up to its Riau grid and PT Inalum’s network for an additional 100 MW and 40 MW.

“To get back to normal, 1,900 MW of power capacity is required for Aceh and North Sumatra,” he said.

North Sumatra Governor T. Erry Nuradi said it had accepted the reports from PLN North Sumatra about the cause of the blackout. He hoped that the operator could fix the problem soon.