Private sector and local governments are expected to participate more in helping villages reach energy self-sufficiency as the central government is lacking the funds to run such programs alone. Under the central government’s energy self-sufficiency villages program (DME) that has run since 2007, 633 villages have reached energy self-sufficiency at the cost of Rp 895.3 billion (US$89 million), Bayu Krisnamurthi, a deputy to the coordinating minister for the economy, said Thursday.

The current power-supply crisis, which has caused rotating blackouts in many provinces and inflicted big losses upon household and industrial consumers, should serve as a stern warning to the judges at the Constitutional Court not to be so narrow-minded as to annul the new electricity law for being too liberal.