Blackout in Aceh, N. Sumatra
Thursday, January 12 2006 - 01:48 AM WIB
The rolling blackouts, which will continue over the next 52 days, will take place during peak usage hours, between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., according to the company?s spokesman in North Sumatra, Agus Muliadi.
?The blackouts will take place in North Sumatra and Aceh only, and will not affect the rest of Sumatra island,? Agus told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
He said the power cuts were necessary because of routine maintenance work on a generator at the power plant in Belawan, which is about 20 years old.
?The maintenance work will result in power shortages of between 100 and 110 megawatts per day, he said. during the work, the plant will only, be able to supply 985 megawatts of power, short of the 1,080 megawatts required by consumers.
?The generator requires maintenance every 100,000 operating hours to determine if any components need to be replaced,? Agus said.
He also warned that future blackouts were possible, as PLN struggled to meet rising power demand.
?PLN in North Sumatra and Aceh is in a critical state. We cannot meet customer demand, which grows about 7 percent each year, making similar blackouts hard to avoid in the future,? Agus said.
The company?s production manager for northern Sumatra, Pahmi Lubis, said the maintenance work at the Belawan plant should have been done in August last year, but it was postponed because the fasting month of Ramadhan was approaching, as well as Christmas and the New Year.
He said these latest rounds of blackouts would not be as severe as last year, because PLN had completed repair work on four other power plants and had an additional 40 megawatts of power from a new water-generated power plant, PLTA Lau Renun II, which was inaugurated on Dec. 15 last year.
PLN?s technical manager in North Sumatra, Purwanto, said that during peak hours, residential areas would be prioritized over business districts and industrial areas, protecting them as much as possible from blackouts.
However, if there is an increase in power usage outside peak hours, the company will shut down power in residential areas before cutting the power to business districts, he added.
Many residents said they had not been informed of the rolling blackouts.
The owner of a phone kiosk in Padang Bulan, Medan, Merianti Sembiring, first heard of the blackouts from the Post.
?It is too much if PLN is really going to cut power for 52 days. It will badly affect residents and businesses. PLN is shameless. It keeps on cutting power for long periods, but surprise, our electricity bills never change,? Merianti said.
She criticized the company?s management, which she said preferred to institute blackouts instead of replacing old power plants.
?Every month PLN collects payments from residents and businesses, so where does all the money go? It is difficult to believe it cannot afford new power plants, she said. (*)