West Sumatra councillors discuss power crisis with PLN officials
Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, Padang
West Sumatra Legislative Council held a meeting on Friday with officials of state electricity company PLN's West Sumatra office to discuss the prolonged electricity crisis in West Sumatra and its two neighboring provinces, Riau and Jambi.
PLN's West Sumatra office oversees the power supply in the three provinces.
Power has been shut down by rotation in the three provinces for a month, after the water debit in several reservoirs in the provinces -- used by power plants here to generate electricity -- dropped due to the dry season.
The power cuts can last for between three and six hours a day in each province, and sometimes between six and 10 hours a day.
In the meeting, several councillors with Commission D for development questioned the state electricity company's contingency plan to end the power crisis. The councillors also lashed out at the company for its failure to swiftly end the power crisis that has crippled businesses in the three provinces.
Responding to the questions by the councillors, head of PT PLN's West Sumatra office Sofyan Amin explained that currently peak capacity of the power plants in the three provinces is 520 megawatts.
He confirmed that the crisis started after the water debit in reservoirs and lakes that provided power for Singkarak, Maninjau and Kotopanjang power plants began to drop.
The power shortage was also aggravated by a damaged generator in the steam-powered Ombilin power plant. Sofyan admitted that PLN was indeed late in anticipating the dry season, which led to the power crisis.
"We had predicted that the dry season would start between August and early October, but it started in June," said Sofyan.
He claimed that the power crisis in the three provinces had come to an end last week, as the generator in Ombilin power plant had been repaired, while PLN also received an additional 100 megawatts of power from PLN's South Sumatra office.
Sofyan also said that the company was trying cloud seeding over several reservoirs and lakes in the three provinces in order to produce rain to help raise the water debit.
In order to prevent another electricity crisis in the future, the state electricity company plans to forge partnerships with regental governments in South Pesisir regency and Payakumbuh municipality to build power plants in those cities.
Meanwhile, in response to the electricity crisis, the Indonesia Consumer Foundation's (YLKI) West Sumatra office is planning to file a class action suit against the state electricity company.
The deputy chairman of YLKI's West Sumatra office, Dahnil Aswad, said that the plan was based on complaints from people of all walks of life in the province, including from telephone kiosks associations (wartel), garment factories and others who had suffered huge losses due to the crisis.