Realization rate of power plants only reaches 48 percent

Electricity experts and power activists have charged that state owned electricity company PLN?s argument that the electricity tariffs should be increased to cope with the shortage of power supply is baseless because based on the existing data, the actual realization rate of the company?s power plants is only 48 percent, Kompas reported on Tuesday.

Speaking in a discussing held by the Working Group on Power Sector Restructuring (WGPSR) on Monday, electricity expert Dadan Umar said that the data reflected that 52 percent of the existing power generation capacities were still idle.

"It indicates that PLN?s proposal for higher tariffs is meant only for helping it pay the loss due to its inefficiency of its power plants," he said.

According to him, the volume of power supply either from PLN?s own plants or those bought from private electricity companies has more than enough to meet the electricity demands. But the company could not distribute all the power supply due to its poor transmission system.

As the consequence, he said, PLN should pay all the power supply it bought from private companies although it actually did not distribute the power to its customers due to the poor transmission system. He added that it was unfair for the customers if PLN raised the tariff only to cope with the efficiency problem.

According to contracts, all the power supplied by private companies should be paid although PLN, for some reasons, could not distribute all of the electricity to the customers.

PLN proposed an increase in power tariff by an average of six percent per three months beginning this year but the plan was cancelled due to nationwide protests. (*)