Coal accounts for 43% of PLN?s energy use in H1 2011

Coal has become the main fuel for Indonesia ?s power generation, accounting for 43 percent of the total energy mix during the first six months of this year.

During the January to June period, oil-based fuel was ranked second with a 24 percent, followed by gas with 21 percent, water with 7 percent and geothermal with 5 percent.

PLN said last week that the volume of coal used by PLN?s power plants and IPPs rose by 12 percent to 19 million tonnes during the first six month period. The increase was still relatively small because a number of major coal-fired power plants built under the first stage of the 10,000 MW power plant crash program such as PLTU Indramayu in West Java, PLTU Rembang in Central Java, PLTU Lontar and PLTU Suralaya-8 in Banten province and PLT U Tanjung Jati-3 in Central Java have not yet started their commercial operation.

The company said that those power plants would begin commercial operation in the second semester resulting in further increase in the coal consumption to 26 million tonnes in the six month period

?The total use of coal is estimated to reach 45 million tonnes this year,? said Nur Pamuji, the director of the primary energy at PLN, adding that the gas consumption fell 7 percent from 176 tera-british thermal unit (btu) in the same semester, last year.

Total gas and oil consumption were expected to reach 344 tbtu and 9 million kiloliters, respectively, this year.

The fuel-based power plants generated 20.8 terawatt hour (twh) during January to June rising from 17.1 twh in the same semester last year, while electricity produced by geothermal power plants reached 4.7 twh , unchanged from that in the same semester, last year, while the electricity supply from hydropower plants fell to 6.5 twh from 8.6 twh because the volume of rainfalls was relatively lower compared to the same period of last year. The total power production is expected to reach 180 twh this year. (*)