In case of a power cut PLN ready with backups
By Frits Pangemanan
JAKARTA (JP): The State Electricity Company (PLN), currently facing public wrath for raising rates beginning this month, does not want to take any risk of power outages during the APEC meetings here and in Bogor.
"We have prepared a four-tier power supply system to prevent any possible interruption of current at the venues of the APEC meetings and other buildings and strategic places related to the important event," said Azis Sabarto, PLN's chief of its Jakarta and Tangerang branch.
He said PLN has spent the equivalent of US$8.7 million to develop the system which will make power interruptions almost impossible.
"We have allocated another Rp 5 billion ($2.3 million) budget to operate the system," Sabarto added.
PLN has laid a reserve power cable system, which is linked to the Senayan and Karet transmission stations, at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, where the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting will be held on Nov.15, the State Palace in Jakarta, the Jakarta Convention Hall and the Soekarno-Hatta and Halim Perdanakusuma airports.
The two transmission stations are backed up by two power plants; in Suralaya on the northwestern tip of West Java and in Muara Karang, north of Jakarta.
Under the first-tier power supply system, the Senayan transmission station is backed up by the Karet station.
"If power supply is interrupted from the Senayan station, the power will be supplied within 0.3 second by the Karet station," Sabarto said.
PLN also has prepared an uninterrupted power supply system, as the second tier supply, in case both the Senayan and the Karet stations fail. This system will be operated pending the repair of the stations.
"If the repair work takes more than 15 minutes, we will use the third-tier supply system -- the captive generator sets already available at the five locations," he said.
Assuming the worst possible scenario, in which even those generators fail to work, "we will turn to our own diesel generators," he added.
Safety
He said that safety measures also have been taken to secure uninterrupted power supply at other strategic places, such as the hotels where the delegates stay, major shopping centers and such places of interests as the Taman Mini Park.
"PLN will assign technicians at those places 24-hours-a-day to cope with any possible power supply problems," Sabarto said.
As many as 752 PLN technicians and executives have been assigned especially to maintain an uninterrupted power supply during the APEC meetings in Jakarta and Bogor.
The detailed safety measures are especially necessary because we anticipate heavy rains and strong winds beginning this month, he said.
"We have prepared 21 mobile power generators in Jakarta and 11 others in Bogor for the event," he added.
He expects that the power supply capacity will pose no problems at all because the Java-Bali interconnected grid has an oversupply of around 4,500 megawatts (MW).
He estimated that the additional demand for electricity during the APEC meetings will only reach around 75 MW. PLN's subscribers in Jakarta utilize only 3,500 MW.
A back-up power supply system also has been established for six hospitals, Pertamina hospital, Metropolitan Medical Center, Pelni Hospital, Pondok Indah, Harapan Kita Hospital and Cipto Mangunkusumo, as well as for all hospitals in Bogor.
He added that PLN also will keep special guard on the Industri Pesawat Terbang National (IPTN) aerospace company in Bandung, the Husein Sastra Negara and Atang Sanjaya airports, the national radio and television stations RRI and TVRI, telecommunications offices and major hotels.
According to Aziz, PLN will deploy 964 operators and technicians and open 107 new operational posts in Jakarta for serving the APEC summit. "In Bogor, PLN will open 28 operational posts and use 276 technicians during the event," he added.
PLN also established a multiple safety system to prevent power interruption during the summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement here in September, 1992.