Govt to increase tariff of electricity from micro hydro plants

The government plans to increase the feed in tariff of electricity produced by micro hydro power plants from Rp 656 per Kwh to Rp 880 per Kwh in a bid to attract more investment into the sector, reports said on Thursday.

Kontan daily quoted Alihudin Sitompul, director for new and renewable energy at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, as saying that the current feed in tariff as set under the MEMR Regulation No 4/2012 was deemed as too low, causing the independent power producers to be unable to cover operational costs, which in turn has disrupted the operation of a number of power plants.

He, however, did not say when the government would realize the planned increase in the tariff of the electricity to be purchased by state-owned power firm PLN.

Aliudin said that in the planned revision of the minister regulation, the government will still include the F multiplication factor in the tariff formula as it takes into account the location of the micro hydro power plants. (*)