PLN starts construction of Sumbawa PLTMG project
Friday, June 2 2017 - 12:52 AM WIB
State-owned electricity firm PT PLN held a ground-breaking ceremony on Thursday marking the start of construction of a 50 MW gas engine power plant (PLTMG) project in Sumbawa Regency, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Province.
Machnizon Masri, PLN Director of Business for Sulawesi and Nusa Tenggara Region, said in a statement that the power plant project is targeted to be completed in 18 months in the hope that commercial operation could start at the end of 2018.
He said that the Sumbawa PLTMG project forms part of the government?s five-year program to develop a combined 35,000 MW power plants until 2019.
The NTB province comprises of three separate electricity systems namely the Sumbawa system, Lombok system, and Bima system. The Sumbawa system currently has installed power capacity of 50 MW and peakload of 40 MW. Once the Sumbawa PLTMG project is completed, the power supply in Sumbawa system will double.
Machnizon said that when the Sumbawa and Bima systems have been interconnected with transmission network, the power from the Sumbawa PLTMG can also be transmitted to Bima. The Sumbawa PLTMG project will increase electrification ratio in NTB from 79.44 percent as per April 2017 to more than 95 percent at the end of 2019.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak