Industry Players In Tangerang Stop Using PLTU, Switch To Electricity

JAKARTA - Industry players in the Tangerang area, Banten, are busy stopping the use of their own Steam Power Plant (PLTU) and switching to PLN electricity to reduce air pollution.

Electric Instrument Manager of PT Polychem Indonesia Taufan Prihadi stated that his party had switched to using PT PLN (Persero) electricity after previously generating independent electricity from PLTU of 2x15 MW. The electricity is used to make polyester raw materials, namely etylene glycol.

"To reduce air pollution, we have retired PLTU which was previously managed independently to reduce emissions," he said as quoted by ANTARA, Saturday, August 26.

Apart from no longer using coal to generate electricity, he continued, the company is much more efficient in terms of operations, because electricity costs nearly IDR 10 billion per month if it still uses independent plants.

Now using electricity from PLN is also more efficient in terms of expenditure. Electric costs are cheaper and free of maintenance costs. In the past, when our PLTU was operating, coal consumption reached approximately 740 tons per day," he said.

According to him, company management also received positive value in the use of PLN electricity, especially since the management's energy policy is in line with government policies to immediately achieve net zero emissions by 2060.

Separately, a communologist from Pelita Harapan University, Emrus Sihombing, said that the air quality in Banten is much better when compared to the capital city of Jakarta, although it is closer to PLTU which is considered one of the sources of pollutants.

According to him, many environmental experts have explained the poor air quality in Jakarta due to problems in the transportation sector that have never been resolved.