Indonesia wrestles with its chronic electricity crisis

By Nicholas Newman http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/Freelance-Journalist.html
Crisis was the term Indonesia’s president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono chose to describe his country’s electricity problems. Dahlan Iskan, CEO of state-owned power company PT PLN (Persero), has also admitted the country’s supply of electricity is very limited. PLN has encountered power shortages in 250 regions, including 243 locations in eastern Indonesia, he said.

WHAT LIES BEHIND THE CURRENT POWER CRISIS?

Two main causes underlie the latest current power crisis, which started in 2008. The first is the 1997 Asian Economic Crisis, which forced PLN to cancel many new power station developments says Dr Mika Purra, a research fellow at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. The looming power shortage was masked by the crisis and almost a decade of slow growth until Indonesia’s economy began to accelerate around 2006.

The second underlying cause has been government and business sector indecision over investment in generating capacity for at least five years before the current crisis began, suggests Peter McCawley, a visiting fellow at Australian National University’s (ANU) Indonesia Project. http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/print/volume-18/issue-9/power-report/indonesia-wrestles-with-its-chronic-electricity-crisis.html
For more on Indonesia see http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/Investing-in-Indonesian-Oil-and-Gas!.html