Tender deadline of Sumatra PLTS projects extended
Friday, July 14 2017 - 07:52 AM WIB
Petromindo
State-owned electricity firm PT PLN has extended the deadline for participants of pre-qualification tender of solar PV power plant projects (PLTS) in Sumatra in returning the tender documents to end of this week.
The deadline to return the tender documents was initially set for July 10. PLN opened the tender late in May. A total of 212 documents for the planned PLTS projects in six regions in Sumatra have been collected by the tender participants.
?The deadline to return the documents has been extended until end of this week. We?ll see next week how many (participants) return the documents,? said Director of Miscellaneous New and Renewable Energy at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Maritje Hutapea told Petromindo.com Thursday.
She said that once the documents have been returned, evaluation process will be followed.
PLN in May opened the PQ tender for the development of a combined 167.58 MW of solar power plant projects spread in 115 locations in Sumatra.
The projects are divided into six packages including package 1 in Aceh with capacity of 20 MW; package 2 in North Sumatera with capacity 35 MW; package 3 in Riau, Riau Islands, and Bangka Belitung with capacity 38.68 MW; package 4 in West Sumatra with capacity 16 MW; package 5 in South Sumatra, Jambi and Bengkulu (S2JB) with capacity 33 MW; and package 6 in Lampung with capacity of 24.9 MW.
According to Maritje, the package 3 project gained the most interest from tender participants with 61 interested companies, followed by package 3 (47 interested participants), and package 1 (35 participants). The three other packages including package 5 received 29 (participants), package 6 (24 participants), and package 4 (16 participants).
Of the projects offered, most are located in regions where the local electricity supply cost (or BPP) of PLN is higher than the national average, which means that the projects would be quite economically attractive. Only projects in Lampung (package 6) and West Sumatra (package 4) where the local BPP is lower than the national BPP, but the fact that they still received interest from bidders suggest that the projects are still financially feasible.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan has recently issued a minister regulation, which sets tariff of electricity from renewable-based power plant projects including solar to be sold to state-PLN at maximum 85 percent of the regional BPP. Some industry players have complained that the limit has made the tariff of electricity sold to PLN lower than the tariff allowed under the previous feed-in tariff policy.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak