State-owned electricity company PLN will install charging stations to support the government’s electric car initiative, the firm’s top executive says.
PLN would begin by installing 10 electric car charging stations in Jakarta before expanding to other areas, PLN president director Nur Pamudji said in Jakarta on Monday.
“We will provide charging stations for electric cars in malls, office complexes and rest areas,” Nur told reporters in Jakarta.
The charging service would not be subsidized by the government, Nur said.
State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan has been aggressively promoting a government program to develop electric cars to reduce the nation’s reliance on gasoline and to preserve the environment.
Automotive experts doubted that the government can realize its plan to begin mass production of electric vehicles in Indonesia by 2014, saying that no major auto producers has been involved in the initiative to date.
Separately, Pamudji said that PLN generated 97.6 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in the first half of 2012, up 10 percent from the same period last year.
Meanwhile, PLN’s power plants and independent power producers (IPP) burned 158.5 tera-British thermal units (TBTU) of natural gas to generate electricity, up from 140.9 TBTU last year, Nur added.
The company’s plants consumed 4.3 million kiloliters of oil-based fuel in the first half of 2012, according to Nur, which was down from 5.6 million kiloliters from the same period last year.
Oil-based fuel consumption had reached 58 percent of PLN’s annual target of 7.4 million kiloliters, he said.
Meanwhile, PLN coal division head Helmi Najamudin said the company’s total coal consumption in the first half had topped 18 million tons.
Helmi said that the company would likely consume 57 million tons of coal this year, comprising 40 million tons for PLN power plants, 12 million tons for PLN’s subsidiaries and 5 million tons for independent power producers.
“We expect this year’s total consumption will only reach 90 percent of the initial target,” Helmi said.
As reported earlier, the company has touted its plan to limit the proportion of oil-based fuel in its energy mix to 1 percent by 2015.
According to the proposal, by 2015 PLN’s energy mix would comprise coal at 64 percent, gas at 23 percent, gas at 10 percent, renewable energy at 2 percent and oil-based fuel at 1 percent.
PLN’s oil-based fuel and gas division chief, Suryadi Mardjoeki, said that the reduction of diesel fuel in the company’s energy mix would be gradual, from 5 percent in 2013 to 3 percent in 2014.
Although PLN said it would accelerate efforts to replace oil-fired power plants with gas-fired or coal-fired plants to reduce costs, it appears that PLN has currently been facing difficulties in securing an adequate gas supply for its power plants.
Suryadi said that PLN had gas supply contracts that have gone unfulfilled.
“The gas from Gajah Baru field has failed be delivered, as well as gas from Glagah Kambuna field, which is declining faster than expected before,” he said.
