Riau and West Sumatra to plug into new powerplant

JAKARTA (JP): West Sumatra and Riau provinces will get an extra 114 megawatts (MW) of power when the hydropower plant in the Riau village of Kotapanjang becomes operational in August.

The plant itself has been completed and the filling of the plant's dam with water started yesterday with a ceremony presided over by Djiteng Marsudi, president of the state-owned electricity company PLN.

Djiteng said the plant, which is on the border of the two provinces, would be connected to the 150-kilovolt electricity network stretching 153 kilometers from Payakumbuh, West Sumatra and the Riau capital of Pekanbaru.

The plant cost US$340 million. Eighty-five percent was financed from PLN loans and the rest from the state budget.

Djiteng was quoted by Antara as saying the provinces lacked electricity and that the plant could only partly satisfy demand.

He said electricity demand in Riau alone reached 435 MW with 15 percent growth a year, far above the capacity of PLN's power plant in the province.

The situation forced many plantation operators, mining firms and forestry firms to set up their own generators. The captive power in Riau alone reached 580 MW.

To satisfy electricity demand, PLN was developing the Singkarak hydropower station in West Sumatra, which will become operational in mid-1998 (175 MW), he said.

Another power plant in West Sumatra, the Ombilin combine- cycled power plant (200 MW) will become operational in April.

West Sumatra has two operational power plants -- the Padang gas-fired power plant (60 MW) and the Maninjau hydropower plant (68 MW).

All the plants are or will be connected to the Riau-West Sumatra electricity grid. (jsk)