Indonesia takes steps to increase power capacity by 6 gigawatt

Indonesia takes steps to increase power capacity by 6 gigawatt

Indonesian state-owned Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) is attempting to
improve the country's ability to meet increasing economic demand for
electricity by getting stalled power projects off the ground.

34 power plant projects worth in the region of $828.8m have been held up for
the last seven years.

Jakarta Post reports that the projects were part of former president Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono's administration's fast track programmes and account for
627.8 MW in capacity.

11 of the plants are coal-fired and PLN have decided to convert many of
these to gas-fired power as they are quicker to build.

The other 17 will continue as planned and the remaining six will be taken
over and continued by PLN through engineering, procurement and construction
(EPC) contracts.

PLN corporate communications head I Made Suprateka insisted that there would
not be significant losses from the termination of the 11 projects because
five of them had not started construction yet.

"So there has not been any rupiah lost, no money. The 34 stalled projects
are small with one power plant having an average capacity of 2x3 MW. The
average contract for each project was worth between Rp 200 billion to Rp 400
billion," he told reporters during a press conference.

The government's auditors are investigating why the projects did not proceed
under anti-graft regulations.

Apart from handling the stalled projects, PLN has been tasked with
completing President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's ambitious program to procure an
additional 35,000 MW by 2019.

The 35,000 MW project succeeds the 10,000 MW policy launched by Yudhoyono
during his first presidential term in 2005, to keep reserve margins - the
difference between capacity and peak demand - within the International
Energy Agency's recommended level of 20 to 35 percent.

As the nation is at risk of a power crisis should the level decline to below
20 percent, Jokowi has taken the initiative to boost power capacity to
accommodate higher economic growth.

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Link to Original Article:
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2016/11/indonesia-takes-steps-to
-increase-power-capacity-by-6-gigawatt.html?cmpid=$newtrackid&eid=287675795&
bid=1598328

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com