PLN plans to cut tariff at night by up to 20 percent

State electricity company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) plans to cut electricity tariffs for industries by up to 20 percent at late night from 11 pm to 7 am to encourage companies to shift their production to midnight in order to reduce the use of electricity at busy hours.

PLN's president director Dahlan Iskan said Sunday that the late night cut would be also good for workers because they would receive extra payment from working at night

?Companies may prefer to pay extra payment but pay less for electricity,? he said.

At present companies pay an average of Rp 730 per kilowatt during 24 hours. With the planned 20 percent late night cut, the companies will pay only Rp 550 per kWh during eight hours from 11 pm to 7 am.

Dahlan said that the electricity company should produce extra 5,000 megawatt to meet the surging use during peak hours from 5 pm to 10 pm. The extra production was quite costly for the company because it had to use oil-based fuel to increase the supply due to a continued decline in gas supply, he said.

The power use during peak hours at the Java and Bali grid has reached 18,365 megawatt at present, an increase of 1,000 megawatt from 2010.

PLN said earlier that it had to pay extra costs of Rp 6 trillion a year from every 100 million British thermal unit per day (mmbtud) reduction of gas supply. (godang/giok)