Power crisis in Lampung intensifying

Power crisis in Lampung intensifying

Oyos Saroso HN
The Jakarta Post
Bandarlampung, Lampung

Blackouts imposed by state-owned electricity company PLN in
Lampung over the last several months have caused economic losses
and moved customers to refuse to pay their bills.

A gas station owner here said he had seen his daily revenue
decline due to the blackouts, which now take place every two
days. The blackouts originally took place every three days.

"I was already suffering losses when the power blackouts
occurred every three days. I don't know how much money I'm losing
now," the businessman, Effendi, 55, said over the weekend.

Internet cafe operator Tony is also angered by the situation.
"It might be OK if the electricity went off for two hours, but
now the power blackouts can last the whole day, inflicting
hundreds of thousands of rupiah in losses."

PLN has been applying blackouts of between four and eight
hours from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. every two days since Sept. 13. The
blackouts were ordered in response to a lack of water to operate
hydroelectric power plants in Way Besai and Batutegi, the main
power suppliers for the province.

The situation is worse in West Lampung, East Lampung, Way
Kanan and Tanggamus regencies, where power outages occur almost
daily.

Consumer protection activist Saparudin, 30, said Way Kanan had
not had electricity at night for the last six months, prompting
thousands of subscribers from eight districts in the regency to
stop paying the bills.

He said the electricity went off at least three times a day.

"The frequent blackouts have damaged electric-powered home
appliances. Can you imagine, these sudden electricity blackouts
take place three times a day, just like taking medicine.

"What upsets us is the PLN meter readers who charge us for
more than we use," Saparudin said.

As of August no fewer than 30,000 PLN customers in Central
Lampung, East Lampung, Way Kanan and Metro have had their power
cut off for refusing to pay their electricity bills.

The head of the operational unit at PLN's Tanjungkarang
office, Djoko Sutojo, said the company had to impose the
blackouts because the prolonged drought had reduced the
capability of power plants in the province by 50 percent.

"The hydroelectric power plants used to generate up to 258
megawatts of power, but now their capacity has been reduced to
only 125 megawatts," Sutojo said.

Because of the lack of water, the turbines in the plants can
only work between two and five hours a day, with a maximum power
generation of 70 megawatts. The remaining power is now supplied
from the Bukit Asam hydroelectric plant in West Sumatra and some
diesel power plants in Lampung, which can generate a total of 260
megawatts.

But Sutojo said only up to 100 megawatts of power from Bukit
Asam was able to reach Lampung because many transmitters
connecting the plant to the province were inconveniently located.

PLN's Lampung office has been forced to buy 12 megawatts of
power from shrimp breeding company PT Central Pertiwi Bahari,
which operates its own power plant.

"But we still cannot meet demand because the number of
subscribers in increasing," Sutojo said.

There are 715,000 customers registered with the PLN office in
Lampung.

An economist said the electricity crisis was keeping foreign
investors from the province.

"We have no choice but build more power plants to serve people
in the province. The Way Besai hydro power plant supplies most of
its power to people in the neighboring province of South
Sumatra," the economist from Lampung University, Wahyu Sasongko,
said.

PLN has also warned of imminent power outages affecting
Jakarta if heavy rains do not begin before October. The water
level in three reservoirs is now dangerously low, nearly 70
percent below normal, enabling the hydropower plants at Saguling
and Cirata to only generate half of their normal capacity of 700
megawatts and 1,000 megawatts respectively.