Wayang Windu ready to lower power tariff

Star Energy is ready to lower the price of its power output in a bid to proceed negotiation with state electricity company PLN, company president Supramu Santosa said.

Star Energy is in the process of developing the Wayang Windu geothermal power plant, whose power output would be supplied to PLN. But negotiation over the power price had come to a deadlock as PLN wanted a power price of less than the 5 U.S. cent per Kwh proposed by Star Energy.

Supramu said that Star Energy decided to lower the price to ensure that the power project can be realized.

"Basically we don't want to create difficulty for PLN. We'll go down, and PLN will go up," Supramu told Petromindo.com last week. He did not say, what the new price proposed by Star Energy.

But he acknolwedged that the power produced by geothermal plants was relatively more expensive than those produced by other plants due to the higher risks of geothermal project, and the high interest rate on loans charged by banks.

Supramu expects negotiation with PLN could be concluded at the end of this month, and the construction of the project could start early next year. Start Energy plans to increase some US$100 million in additional capital into the Wayang Windu II power project.

Wayang Windu geothermal power plant which is operated by IPP is located in South Bandung,West Java.

Wayang Windu unit 1 110 MW has been operated since last 2000 and unit2 110 MW would be in 2008(dino)