Siemens wins Muara Tawar power project
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A Siemens consortium has won the tender for construction of the expansion of Muara Tawar power plant in Bekasi, West Java, state electricity company PT PLN announced on Monday.
The Siemens consortium, comprising PT Siemens Indonesia, PT Balfour Beatty Sakti Indonesia, Samsung Corporation and Siemens AG, was chosen on the grounds that it had offered the lowest price in terms of rupiah per kilowatt capacity compared with the two other competitors, Alstom and IMECO GE consortium, said PLN president Eddie Widiono.
"The winner was selected after a study into the price of the electricity produced that the consortium has offered, the amount of investment and the share ownership of PLN after the power plant has been running for 20 years," Eddie said at his office.
In terms of the power capacity price, the Siemens consortium made the lowest offer, Rp 2.6 million, equivalent to US$288.95 per kilowatt of capacity.
In comparison, Alstom offered a price at Rp 3.3 million per kilowatt capacity and IMECO Rp 3.4 million.
In terms of the project's value (excluding value-added tax), the Siemens consortium also beat its competitors. It offered $248 million (Rp 2.2 trillion), far lower than the $312 million offered by Alstom and $254 million by IMECO.
Having won the tender for the project, the Siemens consortium will be obliged to build six power units, each with a generating capacity of 100 Megawatts (MW) to 150 MW.
Project construction, an extension of the existing Muara Tawar power plant, should start at the end of this month, and is scheduled to continue until the middle of July 2004.
According to Eddie, the Muara Tawar project was initiated by PLN after it learnt last year that a power crisis might be imminent in Bali and Java in 2004. A power crisis would be dangerous for the country's political stability. "Moreover, the country will hold general elections that year," he said.
Total capacity of the Java-Bali power grid is currently some 18,000 MW, with a peak load of 13,700 MW. Without expansion of the capacity, a power crisis would be imminent, given that power demand grows by 8 percent annually.
The anticipated power crisis was precipitated by construction delays over another power plant, Tanjung Jati B, Jepara, Central Java, which was finally left in limbo due to financial difficulties. Tanjung Jati B, if constructed, would have strengthened the Bali and Java power grid by 2004, but after difficulties in raising funds for the project, the deadline for completion of its construction was postponed to 2006.
Eddie said that in order to substitute for the Tanjung Jati B project so as to meet Bali and Java power demand in 2004, a Cabinet meeting approved PLN's proposal last October on the expansion of the Muara Tawar power plant, which would be equipped with combined open-cycle gas turbines.
Eddie said that to help finance the project, PLN would issue bonds worth Rp 900 billion in the near future. The company would finance the balance of the investment cost from its own funds and domestic loans.