PLN plans to expand Bakaru hydro electricity plant

State electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) will add one more new turbine with a capacity of 65 megawatts (MW) to the Bakaru hydro electricity plant to increase the plant's production capacity to 191 MW, Media Indonesia reported Saturday.

The government of Japan has already offered a loan of US$50 million or around Rp 450 billion to Indonesian government to fund the project (expansion),? PLN's director of distribution and transmission Herman Darnel Ibrahim said in Makassar on Friday.

?We are still studying various matters regarding the utilization of the loan to expand the Bakaru hydro electrcity power plant (project),? Herman said.

According to Herman, there is an increasing demand for the expansion of the Bakaru power plant because it is one of the important sources of energy catering to 1.3 million PLN?s customers in South and West Sulawesi provinces.

It is also the biggest power plant in South Sulawesi and its costs for power generation are low. Currently, It has two turbines with capacity of 126 MW.

Due to sedimentation at water dam in Bakaru, Herman said the government will utilize some portion of $50 million loan to deepen the water level so that three turbines can be operated.

Due to sedimentation, Bakaru reservoir now has just 700,000 cubic meters of water instead of its original capacity of six million cubic meters of water. (*)