By: Rahmad Kurniawan )*
President Joko Widodo was furious when he met with the Directors of PLN after electricity in the Jakarta, West Java and Banten areas had been dead for hours. He asked PLN to immediately fix the electricity disruption and have the correct calculations so that the blackouts did not recur and did not harm the community.
He regretted that PLN did not learn from events that had happened before, it should have been a valuable lesson so that similar problems would not be repeated.
Apparently damage to the network that resulted in some areas on the island of Java has also occurred in several regions in the world. For example, in Manhattan in July 2019, Manhattan was experiencing damage to the substation which disrupted the electrical system, as experienced by Indonesia.
Blackout that occurs certainly is not seen foam only merely technical problems and blackouts. Because, factually has stopped a number of vital and strategic public objects in the transportation, telecommunications and the like.
For these inconvenient events, the Government also has regulations as stipulated in Article 29 paragraph 1 letter 3 of the Electricity Law, in writing if the consumer is entitled to get compensation in the event of a blackout due to errors and / or negligence of operation by the holder of a business permit for supplying electricity according to the conditions regulated in the power purchase agreement.
Jokowi’s indignation is certainly considered reasonable, especially if PLN President Director Sripeni Inten Chayani claimed not to anticipate because of damage to the electricity network system in the north and south.
However he said he would conduct an investigation into the damage to the electricity network system which led to the extinction of a large number of Jakarta, West Java and Banten.
The results of the investigation will be a reference for the purposes of evaluating and improving the electrical system primarily in the Java-Bali region.
In its investigation, PLN also involves experts and will periodically report the progress of the assessment and investigation to the DPR to take part in monitoring.
Also, there are about 250 generators, 500 substations, then 5,000 kilometers of 500kV transmission circuits and 7,000 kilometers of 100 kV transmissions in the Java-Bali electricity system.
At present electricity in the areas of DKI Jakarta, Banten and West Java has returned to normal since Monday night. Sripeni also admitted that he would make every effort to keep yesterday from happening again.
Commission VII member Maman Abdurahman said that his party would always oversee the long-term improvement and improvement after the incident.
For now, the House of Representatives will await the results of the PLN investigation first and do not want to conclude the cause of the blackout which has quite a wide impact.
Meanwhile President Jokowi has requested that PT PLN (Persero) be able to work quickly in handling electricity disruptions that cause total blackouts in the Greater Jakarta area, West Java and Banten.
He was also surprised by the big management, but PLN had no other option when there was a disruption in one of its electricity transmissions. According to the Former Governor of DKI Jakarta, PLN should have a good risk management if it faces obstacles like now so that it will not harm many parties because they have to experience blackouts.
Jokowi said that PLN should have an emergency plan to prevent large power outages that affected the capital city of Jakarta and other provinces in Indonesia.
Power outages are one of the serious problems, and ultimately have an impact on Jakarta’s Moda Raya Integrated Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system and commuter lines to the surrounding area, making passengers finally have to be evacuated from the train.
This incident certainly made PLN the target of citizens. Because, almost all economic matters, especially in Jakarta, stopped, such as internet cafe, laundry, barbershop and others.
Whereas previously Jokowi had provided capital of Rp 6.5 trillion to PLN. With consideration to improve the capital structure and increase the Company’s business capacity. The government deems it necessary to increase the participation of the Republic of Indonesia State capital into the share capital of the State Electric Company. The Government’s great concern is expected to be able to spur PLN’s hard work so as not to repeat the same mistakes.
)* The author is a social economic observer