Power-supply disruptions

Power-supply disruptions

Energy analysts and state-owned electricity company PLN itself
warned as early as 2000 of a looming power-supply disruption in
Java and Bali due to the absence of additional power
infrastructure since the 1997 financial crisis and the
significant increase in demand for power as the economy began to
recover. However, no one expected that parts of East Java would
suffer blackouts as early as last week.

What made the situation even more worrisome to industrial
enterprises is the ambiguous explanations provided by PLN and the
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro.

They persistently denied there was any crisis, asserting that
the supply disruption was only temporary due to technical
problems at several major power stations in Java that cut down
the supply capacity by between 600 megawatts (MW) and 800 MW.

But one finds it quite hard to accept this explanation because
when several hydropower plants in Java lost more than 60 percent
or 1,260 MW of their total capacity due to the lack of water
supply during the dry season last July, PLN was not forced to
impose rotating power blackouts.

One plausible reason could be that the losses in supply
capacity at power stations and in transmission and distribution
lines could have been much bigger than those claimed by PLN.

Judging by the PLN estimate early last week that the peak load
in the Java-Bali region was only about 13,250 MW, there should
have been a reserve margin of more than 40 percent to meet the
600-800 MW supply shortfall because PLN's total capacity in the
region is more than 18,610 MW.

Normally only a minimum reserve margin of 30 percent is
required to avert power disruption during the peak-load period. A
reserve level lower than the minimum could plunge parts of Java
into darkness during the peak-load time.

The troubling question then is whether PLN's power reserve
margin could have been much smaller than the minimum 30 percent.

Whatever the case, the situation is quite worrisome indeed.

PLN's explanations about the technical problems that caused
several double-cycle power stations in Java to lose 600 MW of
their total supply capacity also raised big questions. It said
the technical problems occurred because these plants had been
forced to use fuel oil, rather than natural gas, most of the
time.

Are PLN engineers so technically incompetent so as not to
anticipate these problems with proper maintenance work?

Whatever the real reason behind the disruptions, rotating
power blackouts in several industrial areas in East Java are
raising great concern because electricity is so vital to the
economy.

This problem once again is raising big issues about PLN's peak
load management, maintenance system and the efficiency of its
transmission and distribution lines.

True, the power monopoly, overburdened with mountains of debts
caused partly by the melting of the rupiah, simply does not have
enough resources even to expand its transmission and distribution
networks, let alone construct new generation stations.

But power-supply disruptions should not have occurred had PLN
established good cooperation with captive power suppliers in
Java, which have an estimated 6,800 MW in reserve capacity. This
captive power generation was built mostly in the early 1990s when
industrial growth outpaced power infrastructure development so
that many industrial companies, faced with frequent power
shortage, built their own power units.

PLN and the government has thus far resolved price disputes
with 20 of the 27 independent power producers that were licensed
in the early 1990s, but many of them will come on stream only
within the next three to four years. PLN itself is building a new
power station with a capacity of 850 MW at Muara Tawar in West
Java but this one too is only expected to come on line next year.

The power-capacity level will thus remain dangerously low,
making industrial users in Java and Bali highly vulnerable to
supply disruptions.

It is therefore more imperative than ever for PLN to improve
its peak load management, maintenance system and cooperation with
captive power suppliers to avert major power blackouts during
this critical period until enough additional capacity comes on
stream to increase the power reserve margin much higher than the
minimum 30 percent.