Muara Tawar plant crucial to avoiding power crisis: PLN
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
State-owned power company PLN said on Tuesday that its choice of technology for the construction of the Muara Tawar power plant was the best alternative available to help avoid a power crisis in the near future.
Company president Eddie Widiono told a press conference here that the proposed technology, called 100-150 megawatt (MW) E-type power generation, was cheaper to maintain than the 250 MW F-type technology, championed by some PLN critics.
He added that using the gas-fired F-type technology was not feasible at the moment because of a gas supply problem that could last until 2006.
The F-type technology could also use fuel oil to drive the turbines, but this would create costly corrosion problem.
Eddie stressed that the Muara Tawar power project would have to be completed in 2004 to help avoid the Java and Bali regions from suffering an imminent power crisis as demand had been growing fast.
The US$240 million Muara Tawar power project is located in Bekasi, West Java.
But the Working Group on Power Sector Restructuring (WG-PSR), a non-governmental organization, has criticized the project, saying that the cost of the E-type technology was more expensive at $262.5 million compared to around $250 million for the F-type.
WG-PSR said that the higher cost would eventually be passed on to PLN customers in the form of higher electricity charges.
But Eddie said that the overall cost for the F-type technology was actually higher because of the frequent need for maintenance, which would cause PLN to suffer lost production.
The plan to build the Muara Tawar power plant is part of PLN's attempt to meet the growing demand for electricity in Indonesia, particularly in Java and Bali.
The current capacity of the Java-Bali power grid is some 18,000 MW, while its peak load stands at 13,700 MW. A power crisis is imminent, given that the demand for power is growing by 8 percent annually, while PLN investment in the power sector has been basically zero since the financial crisis started in the late 1990s.
PLN has short-listed three consortia for selection as the developer of the Muara Tawar plant.
The first consortium consists of Siemens, Balfour Beatty and Samsung.
The second comprises Alstom Power Esi, Alstom Switzerland Ltd., Marubeni Corp., and PT Matlamat Cakra Canggih.
Meanwhile, the third group consists of PT Imeco Inter Sarana and PT Rekayasa Industry.
The winning bidder will be announced by March 31 of this year. The winner will be selected mainly based on the lowest price per rupiah/kilowatt hour (kWh) being offered.
The winning bidder will be obliged to build six power units, each with a generating capacity of between 100 megawatts and 150 megawatts (MW).
The contract, expected to be signed in the middle of next month, will include engineering, construction, transportation, operation and maintenance within the warranty period, said Muljo, without specifying the length of the warranty period.