PLN Gives Rp4 Trillion to Eastern Regions

Friday, 10 June, 2011 | 15:32 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:The state electricity company, PT PLN (Persero), disbursed Rp4 trillion to improve electrification in Indonesia’s eastern regions. These areas have the lowest rate of electrification or electrification ratio, among all PLN subscribers in Indonesia.

Most of Indonesia’s eastern regions can only access an average of 50 percent electrification. For example, Central Kalimantan has 50 percent, Southeast Sulawesi has 45 percent, and West Papua has 42 percent. To match the national scale, the electrification ratio target in these areas must reach 60 percent.

Syarifuddin Ibrahim, the PLN’s East Indonesia Customer Service and Distribution Division chief, said that the funds coming from the state budget are used to finance network installations. “They include setting up cables and purchasing transformers,” he said in Jakarta yesterday.

According to Ibrahim, the low electrification ratio in the eastern parts of Indonesia was due to difficulties faced by the PLN in reaching settlements. Eastern Indonesia is a vast but rarely-populated territory. Ibrahim hoped the funds will help expand the PLN network to all locations.

PLN aims to reach 1.4 million potential subscribers in eastern Indonesia through their newly-installed network. This will include 250,000 households, which expect their share of electricity on June 17. The power required to support the network installation is about 1,200 megawatts (MW).

Overall, PLN has disbursed Rp2 trillion to ensure that 1.2 million households in the waiting list will have electricity by June 17. The program is the first stage of a program to accelerate the provision of a 10 MW additional power project. A similar program was done last year by serving 1 million households which were in the waiting list.

Benny Marbun, the PLN’s Marketing Division chief, said that the state-power company will add 1,200 MW additional electricity because the burden to provide access to more waiting subscribers is estimated to be around 300 MW. “Each household will want an average of 1,000 watts,” he said.

TRI SUHARMAN

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