Kaltim Blackout, This Is The Cause, Said PLN

BALIKPAPAN - Electricity disruptions in the East and South Kalimantan regions from Thursday to night affected millions of customers and suffered losses. The hashtag KaltimBlackout is echoed in the Twitter timeline.

Parts of the Balikpapan area are still dark along with a number of areas in East Kalimantan such as Samarinda, Tenggarong, Bontang, and Sangatta, electricity supply has stopped since 13.29 WITA. Similar disturbances also occurred in South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan.

"The main cause is the disconnection of the interconnection system, the link between South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan, due to disruption of transmission from the Tengkawang Main Substation and the Embalut Substation," said General Manager (GM) of the Main Unit for East and North Kalimantan (UIW Kaltimra) Saleh Siswanto, quoted by Antara, Thursday, May 27th.

The Embalut substation is known to be in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan. With the disconnection of this connection system, the Mahakam System in East Kalimantan and the Barito System which covers South Kalimantan and parts of Central Kalimantan lack power because the power from several generators is not distributed.

Because of this, some customers in certain areas have their electricity going out, while within a few hours others start to recover and get back their voltage.

"Our distribution system from Balikpapan to Sangatta has gone out, except for Tanjung Redeb, Berau, which are isolated, or are outside the Mahakam System," continued Saleh.

As a result of this transmission disruption, at least 1.02 million PLN customers were affected. The Twitter account of PLN Kaltimra's Public Relations at @ PLN123 was flooded with statements and statements, including information on which customers had not yet received electricity again.

"Sepinggan is still dark," said the fataefendi account 7.

According to GM Saleh, it takes a process of four to eight hours to normalize the system, considering that the generator used in the electrical system is a PLTU or steam power plant.

"There are three PLTU units that are in the process of normalizing, namely the Balikpapan PLTU with a power of 2x100 Megawatts (MW), PLTU Bontang with a power of 2x30 MW, and PLTU Tanjung Batu with a power of 2x110 MW," said Saleh.

With a maximum power of 60 MW, PLTU Bontang is the fastest to enter the system again, which is 4 hours. And it is expected that in 6-8 hours PLTU Balikpapan and Tanjung Batu.

After Bontang re-entered, at 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. the electricity was back. According to Saleh, it is calculated that the normal situation returns along with the peak load period, in which 420 MW of electricity from PLTU Balikpapan and Tanjung Batu enters the system again.

Kaltimra's own peak load reaches 535 MW and occurs between 18.30 and 21.00.

"We apologize profusely for this inconvenience," said Saleh.