PLN has problems with Chinese machinery

JAKARTA. State power company PT PLN has blamed difficulties in acquiring land, time-consuming loan disbursement and technical problems in imported machinery for the delayed completion of several coal-fired power plants within the first phase of the 10,000 megawatts (MW) fast-track program.

PLN construction director Nasri Sebayang said that as a result, the company has come under fire for requesting additional subsidies from the House of Representatives since the delay caused soaring consumption of oil-based fuels beyond the previous estimates.

“Land acquisition has long been among the major problems in our projects. For the fast-track program, we even have several projects where the locations have to be cancelled due to land problems,” he said during a press conference at his office in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Several projects that still faced land-acquisition problems were power plants in Bengkayang, West Kalimantan; Teluk Sirih in West Sumatra; and Bau-Bau in Southeast Sulawesi, he said.

The fast-track program began in 2006. PLN had predicted the program to be completed in 2010.

Due to the land, funding and equipment problems, the expected completion date has been extended to 2014.

“The second problem is about difficulties in disbursing loans from China,” Nasri said.

He said that many projects were temporarily stalled while waiting for government guarantees to be issued for their funding.

PLN also did not know how Chinese contractors worked and how they maintained quality-control over machinery, he said. Because of that, Nasri said, many pieces of equipment failed to work properly during the commissioning time and required even more time for repairs.

He cited the example of the Amurang power plant in North Sulawesi, which has a total capacity of 25 MW.

When the condenser was being tested, it exploded. It took several months to deliver a new condenser from China.

“At the Payton power plant, everything had been ready to be operated. But when we tested its operations, the transformer also exploded. We needed around eight months to have a new transformer ready at the site,” Nasri said.

In the future, to accelerate the completion of the fast-track program, PLN has promised to improve its supervision over products from China.

The company would also tighten quality-control standards both before the products were delivered from China and after the products arrived in Indonesia.

The new supervision standards have been applied at five coal-fired power plant projects, located at Adipala in Central Java, Tenayan in Riau, Tanjung Awar-Awar in East Java, Pelabuhan Ratu in West Java and East Kalimantan.

“We assure you, the outcome of the five projects will be different,” Nasri claimed.

In the first semester of this year, seven new power plants with combined capacity of 860 MW will begin operating. The power plants are Asam-Asam in South Kalimantan (65 MW), Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara (30 MW), Barru in South Sulawesi (50 MW), Amurang (25 MW), Kendari in Southeast Sulawesi (20 MW), Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara (10 MW) and Payton in East Java (660 MW). (Rangga D. Fadillah/ The Jakarta Post)