Oversupply Impact Of The COVID-19 Pandemic, Minister Of Energy And Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif: Electricity Growth Target Lowered To 4.9 Percent

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) has completed the electricity supply business plan (RUPTL) of PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero) or PLN for the period 2021-2030. The RUPTL was issued to support the development of power plants from new and renewable energy sources (EBT).

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif explained that the COVID-19 pandemic also had an impact on electricity growth. According to him, the impact of the pandemic on several large systems, such as the electricity system in Java-Bali, and Sumatra, has the potential to oversupply because electricity usage decreases during the pandemic.

With this change in conditions, PLN made changes to the RUPTL. He said the electricity growth target in 2021 to 2030 was lowered to 4.9 percent.

"Therefore, electricity growth in the previous RUPTL was not appropriate. For this reason, the PLN 2021-2030 RUPTL is projected to only grow by an average of around 4.9 percent from the previous 6.4 percent," he said in the 2021-2030 PLN RUPTL Dissemination Webinar, Tuesday, October 5th.

Meanwhile, Arifin continued, the latest data he has as of June 2021, shows that the national average electrification ratio has managed to reach 99.37 percent.

However, Arifin admitted that there are still some provinces that still need special attention. As for the areas that are still lagging behind, namely East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and Papua.

Arifin also explained that his party will continue to run the 35,000 Megawatt (MW) program.

"And in the next two years, around 14,700 MW will come in, and most of it will come from coal-fired power plants," he said.