PLN wants to buy electricity from Paiton at a price of $0.046 per KwH

State electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) has unveiled that it will buy electricity from the coal-fired Paiton power plant at a price of US$0.046 per kilo watt hour (KwH), the Bisnis Indonesia newspaper reported in its Monday edition.

Edisson Mission Energy, the operator of the plant, has previously offered a higher price of US$0.0479 per KwH .

PLN’s director of primary energy and power generation Ali Herman Ibrahim said the Edisson’s offer price is still too high and therefore it must be reduced,

“The price ($0.0479 is still high. We just want $0.046. Currently, we have not taken a decision because we are still in the process of evaluation,” Ali Herman told the Bisnis on the sidelines of a seminar on private electricity in Jakarta last week.

Paiton Energy is planning to build a new 800 megawatts (MW) power plant with a cost of $580 million in East Java.

Ali Herman said the PLN, under the new policy, must try to get the lowest electricity price from private power producers without losing the competitiveness of the price.

Meanwhile, Paiton Energy’s chief executive officer Roland P. Landry said his company is still negotiating with PLN in order to get economically viable price from the PLN.

Landry hopes there will be an agreement with PLN by June 30 so that the new project work will be started.(*)