PLN to sell electricity surplus to local industries
PLN to sell electricity surplus to local industries
JAKARTA (JP): The North Sumatra, Medan-based, unit of the state-owned electricity company PLN is to sell its power surplus to industries in other provinces in Sumatra, including Aceh, West Sumatra and Riau.
"Currently, our generation capacity is 1,300 megawatts (MW), while our peak-load is only 600 MW. We, therefore, can sell about 500 MW more," the unit's chief, Budi Harjanto, said yesterday. Speaking at a seminar on "The Role of Electricity in Supporting Industrialization in North Sumatra", Budi noted that, in the year 2000, his unit's generation capacity will increase to 1,900 MW as several big power stations will have started operation.
The province is currently building two hydro-power stations in Sidikalang and Sipansihaporas, a geothermal power station in Sarulla (North Tapanuli) and a coal-fired power station in Sibolga (Central Tapanuli).
"We'll complete the construction of our transmission network to Aceh, West Sumatra and Riau next year," Budi was quoted by Antara as saying.
But he expressed concern over the fact that there are still many industrial plants in North Sumatra which rely on captive generators.
"Many industries in Nort Sumatra still rely on captive power units. They are not efficient and not environmentally friendly," he said, adding that the captive power units operated by local industrial companies in the province still had a total capacity of 300 MW.
Budi said that PLN had offered additional incentives to encourage local industrial companies to use PLN's electricity. According to Budi, local companies can pay the connecting costs of PLN electricity through installments for up to two years. They will get a flat tariff of Rp 43/kilowatt hour (kWh) if they use PLN electricity for 350 hours continuously. "Therefore, using our (PLN) electricity is very much cheaper than operating their own generators which cost them Rp 170/kWh," he said.
But Mohd. Nasir Amin of the North Sumatra provincial office of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that frequent outages made many industrial plants in the province reluctant to buy electricity from PLN.
"Outages will certainly disturb their production activities," he said. (13)