Steam power plant in Peranap, Riau to operate in 2006

The mining and energy office in Riau province hopes that the steam power plant, which is now being built with a generating capacity of 2 x 250 MW in Peranap, will commence operation in 2006, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Friday.

Badrun A. Saleh, the head of the office, said in Pekanbaru on Thursday that the capacity of the so called mine mouth power plant, which would use coal as its energy, would be expanded to 6 x 500 MW in 2010.

The 500-ha coal mining area which will be developed to support the operation of the power plant has reserves of about 1.9 billions tons, which are sufficient enough to further expand the power plant into the province?s main electricity resource.

He said with such an expansion plan, the power plant would not only supply to cope with the shortage of power supply in the country but also for exports to Malaysia.

The existing coal reserves, which are estimated to last for 50 years, would enable the expansion of the power plants to 6 x 500 MW, he said. (*)