Kerinci Tirta Sakti power plant to be built soon

Water-powered 380 megawatt Kerinci Tirta Sakti (KTS) power plant project in Muaraemat in Kerinci district, Jambi, will commence soon as the memorandum of agreement (MOA) on the construction of the US$500 million project would be signed on Nov. 5 in Sungaipenuh, Kerinci, according to Jambi governor Zulkifli Nurdin.

Nulkifli told journalists on Sunday (Oct. 29) that the MOA would be signed by an executive of Norwegian state enterprise Starkraf SF as the investor of the project, Indonesian state electricity company PT PLN president Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the Jambi governor, Kerinci regent, an executive of PT Binateknik and an official from the National Development Planning Board.

"This KTS project will be the first foreign direct investment project in Indonesia in the last three years. And for the first time, the Jambi provincial administration gets 15 percent stake for free in a big project to be built in its jurisdiction," Zulkifli said.

Starkraf as the main investor in the project will hold 35 percent stake in the project, PLN will have 35 percent, PT Binatek 15 percent and the remaining 15 percent goes to the Jambi administration.

Besides the free 15 percent stake, the local administrations would still got payment from the project for the water the project would use to generate electricity.

The construction of the power plant would take into consideration the possible earthquake attacks. Therefore, the water tunnel to be built was designed to contain heavy earthquake of up to 7 in the Richter scale.

Zulkifli hoped that the KTS power plant would not create problems in the future, as it was designed environmentally friendly, and to be built outside the Kerinci National Park and far from housing areas. (*)