PLN, Pertamina agree on electricity tariff from Wayang Windu

State owned electricity company PLN and state owned oil and gas company Pertamina have agreed to set the tariff of the electricity to be supplied by the Wayang Windu geothermal power plant at US$0,0434 per kWh, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Wednesday.

Juanda Nugraha, the head of PLN?s team for the negotiation of electricity tariffs, said that the tariff agreement was made after Pertamina agreed to complete the process of the oil and gas company?s plan to take over the geothermal power plant in May, a head of the initial schedule.

Pertamina earlier said that it had allocated a cash amounting to US$57.5 million ( about Rp 517.5 billion) to take over the Wayang Windu geothermal power plant in Pengalengan, West Java from its developer Magma Nusantara, a joint venture of Unocal Corporation and a consortium of banks comprising of Deutsche Bank and Credit Swiss First Boston .

The money would be part of the US$250 million compensation needed for the take over of the geothermal power plant. The tariff of the electricity that will be produced by the Wayang Windu geothermal power plant could be lowered to US$0.0434 per kWh after the power plant received a firm commitment to receive the so called Clean Development Mechanism (DCM) grant.

The grant which is worth about 10 percent of the total value of the Wayang Windu project is given as part of the internal programs to reduce carbon emission in the world.

The construction of the Wayang Windu geothermal power plant which has a capacity of 2 x 110 MW was started in 1997 but the project was temporarily halted during the peak of the country?s economic crisis in 1998. The developer has invested about US$250 million for the construction of the plant. (*)