Power Outage Hits Bekasi's Rawalumbu for Hours, PLN Explains

A power outage struck several areas in Bekasi, West Java, with residents complaining that the unannounced blackout disrupted their work activities. Yeni Lestari (29), a resident of Pengasinan, Rawalumbu District, East Bekasi, said her home had been without electricity from around 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. She claimed she had not received prior notification from state electricity firm PLN about the outage. “The power went out at my house around 5 p.m. I thought my prepaid token had run out because the Wi-Fi was down, but it turned out to be a blackout. It only came back on around 8 p.m.,” Yeni told reporters on Wednesday. “So far there hasn’t been any notification, or maybe there was, but I missed the information. I actually found out about the simultaneous blackout from (social media platform) X,” she added. Yeni said the outage impacted her work activities, as the power cut also knocked out the Wi-Fi network. She was also hampered in recharging her devices used for work. “Firstly, the Wi-Fi went down. So I had to use my own mobile data, whereas at home I should be saving money,” said Yeni. “And it troubled me while working because my mobile phone battery was low, my power bank was drained, and the electricity took a long time to come back on,” she continued. PLN later explained the blackout experienced by residents in Rawalumbu, East Bekasi. A company representative stated that rolling blackouts had been occurring in a number of areas in Bekasi since the morning. “From around midday until the afternoon, there were outages in that area, and we have checked that these outages are related to efforts to improve the electricity supply for the community. PLN is carrying out reinforcement and maintenance activities on the electricity distribution network, which requires supply management or load management,” said a PLN call centre officer. The Rawalumbu area of Bekasi is known to fall under the Bantargebang Customer Service Unit (ULP). PLN stated that rolling blackouts in the area had been occurring since Wednesday morning with varying durations. “For the outages, we checked that within the Bantargebang ULP specifically, they varied: some at 9 a.m., some at 10 a.m., some came back on at 11 a.m., and there were also those that only came back on at 8 p.m.,” said the PLN call centre officer.