Government cancels plan to halve PLN?s share of 35,000 MW project

The government has canceled an earlier plan to cut down by half the share of state-owned electricity firm PLN in the 35,000 MW power plants development program.

Director for power development program at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Alihuddin Sitompul said on Tuesday that PLN is assigned to develop a total of 10,000 MW of power plants as initially planned. The PLN?s portion of the planned 35,000 MW power plant projects has been included in the draft of the 2016-2025 electricity procurement plans (or RUPTL) submitted by PLN to the ministry on Monday for approval.

Alihudin said that the government is confident PLN has the necessary financing capacity to develop the 10,000 MW power plants.

The government has launched a five-year program to develop a combined 35,000 MW power plants until 2019. It initially assigned PLN to develop about 10,000 MW, with the remaining bulk to be developed by the private sector.

The government, however, later asked PLN to reduce its portion of the project to about 5,000 MW as the state utility should focus on developing transmission lines instead. But during a review of the 2016-2025 RUPTL draft with related ministries, it was decided for PLN to develop about 10,000 MW. (*)