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PLN power plans criticized as overly ambitious, too reliant on coal
Critics call PLN’s recently issued electricity procurement plan (RUPTL) for the 2019-2028 period overly ambitious and have chided the state-owned electricity company for reneging on its clean energy plans.
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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, accompanied by Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan (center) and Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan (right), visits a geothermal power plant in Tompaso, Minahasa, North Sulawesi in December. (Antara/Puspa Perwitasari)
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ritics have called PLN’s recently issued electricity procurement plan (RUPTL) for the 2019-2028 period overly ambitious and chided the state-owned electricity company for reneging on its clean energy plans.
Some experts believe the company’s expectation for electricity demand growth is too high.
A recent analysis from global energy think tank Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said, even though the demand growth estimate had been lowered from the previous plan, it was still “too ambitious”.
The IEEFA recorded average demand growth of only 4.6 percent in the last five years (2013-2018), while PLN set the demand forecast at 6.42 percent in its latest procurement plan, down only slightly from the 6.86 percent projection in its older nine-year plan.
"[The demand growth forecast in the new plan] is indeed slightly lower than in the previous plan, but in reality, electricity growth in 2018 was only 5.1 percent. [That low growth] cannot justify the continued use of an overly ambitious assumption in the RUPTL," the IEEFA statement said.
Last week, when presenting the new RUPTL to the public, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan said coal-fired power plants would still dominate the country’s electricity supply at 54.6 percent, or 0.2 percentage points higher than in the previous plan.
“The use of coal in our power grid is still high at 54.6 percent from the total 100 to 110 gigawatts in 2025. Meanwhile, the contributions of renewable energy and gas stand at 23 percent and 22.2 percent, respectively,” he said.
