Bahlil Guarantees No More Power Cuts

The Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM), Bahlil Lahadalia, has ensured that there are no plans for electricity blackouts in the future.

“God willing, there won’t be,” said Bahlil when confirmed by journalists at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs office in Jakarta on Thursday.

Bahlil, alongside the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto, has discussed strategies to ensure that electricity services to the people are running at maximum capacity. One of the discussions related to the compensation and subsidy payment schemes for PT PLN (Persero) to ensure the company has adequate financial capacity to supply electricity.

“So, in general, it has been discussed and there are no problems,” he added.

He also explained that PLN’s total coal requirement reaches 154 million metric tonnes per year. So far, PLN has secured contracts worth 134 million tonnes, leaving a deficit of approximately 20 million tonnes.

The Minister of ESDM has also formed a medium-calorific coal procurement team to address PLN’s difficulties in meeting its power plant requirements.

“In order to supervise primary energy so that this situation does not persist, we have formed a procurement team consisting of PLN, the Directorate General of Mineral and Coal, and the BPKP (Financial and Development Supervisory Agency),” said Bahlil during a working meeting with Commission XII of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) in the Senayan Parliament Complex, Jakarta, on Monday, 15 June 2026.

According to Bahlil, PLN is facing challenges in meeting the demand for medium-calorific coal because the selling price to PLN is low. Companies sell coal to PLN based on the Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) price of 70 US dollars per tonne. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Coal Reference Price (HBA) for the period of 1 June 2026 was set at 121.83 US dollars per tonne.

Regarding this issue, Bahlil has received instructions from President Prabowo Subianto to coordinate with PLN, the Directorate General of Mineral and Coal of the Ministry of ESDM, and the BPKP regarding the fulfilment of PLN’s coal requirements.

“This (the formation of the team) is so that there is no deception among us. It is exhausting when one side says one thing, another says something else, one writes one thing, and another reads something different. I know there is something happening, but let it be. We all understand that the important thing is that we provide the best service for the country,” said Bahlil.