Rotating power blackouts

Official warnings of rolling power blackouts in Java and Bali over the next two weeks, due to a cut of only about 350 megawatts (MW) from two power plants in Jakarta, strengthens the great concern among businesspeople about an impending electricity crisis in Indonesia.

The state electricity company (PLN) warned last week that rolling blackouts might have to be imposed because of tie-in work on gas pipelines from BP Plc's Offshore Northwest Java field to the Muara Karang and Tanjung Priok power plants in Jakarta, which would cut power supply by around 350 MW. This raises many troublesome questions.

The technical reasons cited for the supply reduction seems reasonable enough. However, the need for rolling blackouts during the peak-load period from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., simply because of a 350-MW cut in supply, is rather baffling.

What, then, is the meaning of the Java-Bali interconnected electricity system? Doesn't it mean that a supply shortfall in Jakarta can be covered by power from other plants in Java through the Java-Bali grid? If this cannot be done, then it means that the total electricity capacity of the system must be way below demand.

PLN explained that total demand during peak hours in Java and Bali is around 14,800 MW. This means that total capacity in the Java-Bali system is less than 15,500 MW, while a minimum reserve margin of 35 percent is required to avert power-supply cuts during the peak-load hours.

Hence, the total capacity of the Java-Bali grid should be at least 20,000 MW. A reserve capacity less than this level could easily plunge Java into darkness during peak hours. This is, we think, what may well happen over the next two weeks, unless consumers respond to PLN's appeal to reduce their electricity usage during peak hours to offset the 350-MW supply cut.

Both energy analysts and PLN warned as early as 2000 of a looming power supply disruption in Java and Bali in view of the high increase in demand as the economy began to recover at a more robust pace.

In May and early December, 2003, many areas in Java and Bali fell into total darkness for two consecutive nights due to supply disruptions caused by technical problems at the Paiton plant in East Java and the Suralaya plant in West Java. The shortage of power outside Java was even worse, forcing frequent blackouts.

Some newspapers, however, quoted informed sources at PLN as disclosing that PLN's total capacity in Java now already exceeded 19,500 MW thanks to the completion of the 840-MW capacity Muara Tawar plant near Jakarta and the 600-MW plant in Cilacap, Central Java.

Could it be then that several other major power stations are also encountering technical problems?

Whatever the case, the power supply capacity is indeed at a critical level and is dangerously low.

This power supply problem once again raises big questions about PLN's peak load management, maintenance systems and the efficiency of its transmission and distribution lines.

The power supply disruption could have been compounded by losses caused by technical problems in supply capacity at power stations and in transmission and distribution lines. PLN itself has acknowledged that such losses could range from 15 to 16 percent, not including losses incurred by power theft.

Even though rotating blackouts could perhaps be prevented over the next two weeks presuming cooperation on the part of householders cutting down their power consumption, and industrial users operating on their own power units, the current supply problem should jolt the state power monopoly and the government to the urgent need for building additional power capacity.

Many investors, notably those from overseas and including Japan, have cited acute power shortages as one of the main impediments to new investment in the country.

The government has rightly put power generation as a top priority for the infrastructure projects being offered to private investors.

But not a single investor will be interested unless the government restores legal certainty for investment in the power sector, especially after the annulment by the Constitutional Court of Law No.20/2002 on electricity last December.

This law was supposed to break down the PLN monopoly in power generation, transmission and distribution to mid-size and large users and allow investors to enter the public utility industry. But now that this law has been decreed null and void, the electricity sector requires a new legal umbrella for arranging relationships between PLN and private investors.