New regulation on geothermal price to be issued this month

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry will issue this month a regulation to revise the ministry?s regulation No.2/2011 on feed-in tariff of geothermal, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Tuesday.

Kardaya Warnika, the director general of new and renewable energy and energy conservation at the ministry, said in Jakarta on Monday that the draft of the regulation on the price of geothermal was being finalized. ?We hope the new regulation can be issued this month,? he added.

Meanwhile, Djadjang Sukarna, the secretary of the directorate general, said the government would determine the feed-in tariff of geothermal through the new regulation so that developers and state electricity company PLN would no longer need to negotiate the price.

?The government will fix the feed-in tariff. PLN will be tasked only to buy the geothermal from developers. Developers also will no longer need to negotiate the tariff with PLN,? he added.

Under the current regulation No. 2 Tahun 2011, PLN is assigned to buy geothermal and has the rights to negotiate the price with developers. At present, the price is set at US?9.7 (nine point seven cents US-dollar) per KWh. (*)