Electricity sales growth slows to 6.23%

The growth of electricity sales until the third quarter of this year slowed to 6.23 percent compared to 7.16 percent in the same period of last year due to lower demand from industrial customers, Investor Daily reported on Wednesday.

The paper quoted Head of Commercial Division at state-owned electricity firm PLN, Benny Marbun as saying that sales as of the third quarter period totaled 145.19 tera watt hours (Twh). The highest growth was seen in the business category consumers, followed by household consumers, and industrial consumers.

Benny said that the slower sales growth was attributed to the series of tariff hikes, weakening of the global economy, which affects the country?s export industries, and softer domestic consumption, all of which undermined power demand among the industrial customers.

He pointed out as an example that many textile companies have suffered financial stress following the electricity tariff hikes, and some of them have even shut down their manufacturing business.

Meanwhile, the steel makers have seen export down due to the slower global economic growth, and tougher competition with producers from China which utilize the more power efficient blast furnace technology. Some domestic steel makers then switched to the same technology, resulting in a reduced electricity consumption, Benny explained.

Benny said that PLN will take action to help accelerate sales in the remaining period of this year among others by installing new power lines to household consumers. (*)