PLN says more power plants to use LPG

State owned electricity company PLN said that more of its power plants will switch to using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in a bid to reduce the use of pricey diesel oil.

After previously announcing that four power plants will switch to LPG, company president Eddie Widiono said on Friday that eight additional power plants will also make the same energy conversion including at six diesel oil power plants and two gas-fired power plants.

The six power plants include the 4 x 2.5MW Bontang power plant in East Kalimantan, the 1 x 10MW Siantan power plant in Pontianak, the 6 x 4MW and 2 x 7MW Karang Asem power plant in Samarinda, the 6 X 6.4MW Batakan power plant in Balikpapan, the 4 X 8MW Seiraya power plant in Pontianak and the 6 X 4MW Gunung Malang power plant in Balikpapan.

The other two power plants would include the 2 X 42MW Pesanggraan power plant in Bali and the 6 X 100MW Grati power plant in East Java, which at present, both use natural gas.

PLN earlier said that four power plants will switch to LPG including the 1,000 MW Tambak Lorok power plant in Semarang, the 80 MW Sunyaragi power plant in Cirebon, West Java, the 27 MW Siantan power plant in West Kalimantan.PLN hopes that the power conversion would be able to reduce the use of oil fuel to 22 percent of the total energy consumption in 2006 and to seven percent in 2007 as compared to about 30 percent at present.(dino)