Bahlil Reveals Prabowo's Direct Instructions on Indonesia's Electricity

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Bahlil Lahadalia revealed that President Prabowo Subianto has issued specific directives, primarily to ensure the reliability of the national electricity supply and prevent a recurrence of recent power disruptions.

According to Bahlil, Prabowo instructed the Ministry of ESDM and PT PLN (Persero) to immediately take measurable steps to accelerate the resolution of various issues that could potentially affect the national electricity system.

“President Prabowo’s directive to us is to immediately ensure measurable steps are taken for acceleration so that something like this does not happen again,” Bahlil said at the Palace on Monday (22/6/2026).

As a follow-up to the President’s directive, his ministry is assisting PLN in overcoming constraints in the supply of medium-calorie coal required for the operation of steam-powered electricity plants (PLTU).

“Actually, this is a business-to-business matter. The government should not be too heavily involved in this, it’s B2B. But, well, we must provide good service to the public,” Bahlil said.

Previously, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) disclosed that it had temporarily held back a number of coal shipments destined for the export market and diverted them to PT PLN (Persero). This was done to ensure that PLN’s coal requirements for power generation were met.

Director General of Minerals and Coal (Minerba) at the Ministry of ESDM, Tri Winarno, stated that his office had held back several planned coal sales abroad and redirected the supply to meet PLN’s needs.

“Yesterday we held them. We had some that were about to be sold overseas, we held them and diverted them to PLN,” Tri said when met at the Ministry of ESDM on Monday (22/6/2026).

He assessed that the problem was not caused by a shortage of supply, but rather by aspects of the supply chain that need to be improved so that coal distribution to power plants can run smoothly. “So actually, it is just the supply chain that needs to be fixed. There is no coal issue,” Tri stated.

On the other hand, Tri emphasised that his office has been conducting regular monitoring regarding the supervision of coal supplies for power plants. However, the execution of procurement contracts falls under the authority of the respective companies.