Gov’t Targets 99% Electrification in 2019

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan (left, black suit) during the press conference at the Building III of the Ministry of State Secretariat, Jakarta, Wednesday (24/10). (Photo by: Oji/Public Relations).

The Government ensures there will be no hike in basic electricity tariffs until the end of 2019, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan has said,

The statement was delivered in a press conference on the 4-Year Report on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo-Vice President Jusuf Kalla Administration on Wednesday (24/10).

According to Jonan, the Government in the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) sets the target of 97.5 percent of electrification at the end of 2019 (RPJMN) and the electrification ratio already reached 98.05 percent until the third quarter this year. “Our target is to achieve a 99.9 percent of electrification by the end of next year,” he said.

However, the Minister reminded that electricity distribution to the regions is more important than discussing how many power plants that have been built and so on. The generator availability, he added, will also be useless if there is no cable to distribute the electricity. “So the most important things are generating capacity and transmission and distribution network system,” Jonan said.

The remaining 2 percent of citizens which do not have access to electricity, Jonan continued, equals to 5 million people. “We will try as hard as we can to provide the electricity to the remaining 2 percent,” he said.

Jonan further said that the two components of fair use energy are availability and affordability, “To materialize the affordability aspect, the Government has decided that there will be no increase in electricity tariffs until the end of 2019,” Jonan said.

On that occasion, the Minister also said that there is another target to be accomplished by the end of 2019, namely to construct 160 new gas filling stations and there are currently 160 districts with no official fuel distribution. Of the 160 target points, he said, 57 new gas filling stations were built last year and the Government this year has set the target of build 73 new gas filling stations with 41 gas filing stations having been built. “By the end of this year, we hope we can build gas filling stations in 130 locations,” he said.

As for fuel prices, Jonan said that fuel prices in Puncak Regency, Papua province was previously Rp100,000, in Nunukan Regency, North Kalimantan province it was previously Rp40,000, and in Arfak Mountains, West Papua province it was previously Rp30,000 and now price in those regions are the same as the price in other regions in the country, namely Rp5,150 for solar and Rp4,450 for Premium.

“Furthermore, we will gradually set up the sub-distributors in each village, so that people do not have to travel 15-km by motorcycle only to buy fuel,” Jonan concluded. (DEV/OJI/ES) (GWH/AW/Naster)