Central Kalimantan Residents Demand Concrete Action from PLN Over Rotating Blackouts
The Alliance of the Palangka Raya Dark Movement (GPG), together with the Indonesian Poultry Association (Insar) of Central Kalimantan, is pressing PT PLN (Persero) to take concrete action over the rolling blackouts across Central Kalimantan. As a form of protest against losses amounting to hundreds of millions of rupiah, poultry farmers dumped chicken carcasses in the grounds of the PLN UP3 office in Palangka Raya on Jalan Ahmad Yani.
Febri Yohansyah, National Coordinator of the Blue-Yellow Santri Movement (GSBK), stressed that PLN must take concrete steps rather than merely issuing apologies, which he said did nothing to resolve the material losses suffered by residents and businesses.
“An apology alone is not enough. There should be concrete measures, including calculating and compensating the losses customers have suffered as a result of the blackouts,” Febri said in an official statement received on Tuesday (4/8).
He noted that the apology narrative appears to be a recurring pattern PLN trots out every time large-scale blackouts occur in various regions.
“When a blackout hit several areas of Sumatra, they apologised. When a blackout occurred on Java, they apologised again. As if that apology settles PLN’s problems,” he asserted.
The protest by the GPG Alliance and Insar Central Kalimantan suddenly went viral on TikTok after being uploaded by the account @akunCeritaOomBM on Monday (3/8). In the post, piles of decomposing chicken carcasses were deliberately delivered to the grounds of the PLN UP3 office in Palangka Raya.
“This extreme approach is needed so that PLN management’s ears and empathy start functioning. Now that you have been baited with the stench of dead chickens, hopefully the reek of thousands of chickens sticks to your comfortable air-conditioned rooms, paid for with the sweat of the people whose lives you have ruined,” the account wrote in its video caption.
The heavy losses occurred because most poultry farms in the region use a closed-house system. This system depends on a continuous electricity supply to run ventilation fans and circulate air.
When the power supply is cut, temperatures inside the sheds soar dramatically, causing tens of thousands of chickens to weaken and die suddenly. Although farmers have backup generators, the fuel costs are considered far too high to cover the lengthy duration of the outages. One shed with a capacity of 40,000 birds was reported to have triggered losses of up to Rp360 million.
Responding to the unrest, Iwan Soelistijono, General Manager of PLN UID Kalselteng, explained that the disruption to the power system began with damage to a generator at the Asam-Asam coal-fired power plant. In addition, two generating units owned by Independent Power Producers (IPPs) suffered leaks in their boiler pipes and turbines, causing the power supply to drop sharply.
The situation forced PLN to implement a rolling blackout scheme and limited load transfers across South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan in order to maintain system reliability during the recovery process.
“PLN has deployed all its personnel to speed up repairs to the affected generating units. The company is also asking the public to conserve electricity, especially between 18.00 and 21.00 WIB, and offers its apologies for the inconvenience caused while the rolling blackouts are in effect,” Iwan explained.