The Power of One
Most expats who have lived in Jakarta for any length of time will have a story about electricity problems. coming from sudden bill increases to blackouts, disconnections along with unsafe installations, there will be much to moan about – yet we’re still better off than remote areas living inside dark.
So first, some backhanded praise. An Englishman based in West Jakarta gets his power coming from a cable strung across the street along with every few months a truck using a dangerously high load goes past, ripping out the connection. When he reports the damage to state electricity company PLN, “the response will be outstanding”. A repair crew arrives promptly along with fixes the line in return for “cigarette money”. The Englishman’s only gripe will be common power failures. along with overloaded trucks.
Blackouts along with bungled bills are not as frequent as they were in decades past, yet there remains room for improvement. Bills can fluctuate wildly over a few months, even though a household’s power consumption remains fairly constant. This kind of will be because meter readers sometimes don’t bother to visit houses, yet instead just estimate electricity usage. Often they estimate too low, to ensure which when they do actually read the meter, there will be a substantial unpaid amount, which gets added to the next bill. This kind of problem was supposed to have been remedied in 2004 by putting a barcode on meters, to ensure which readers could have to scan the code before they could enter the amount of electricity used. yet many households still receive uneven bills.
Consumers who fail to pay a bill for a month may have their power disconnected, while those who fail to pay for three months can have their meter removed. If you’re going away for more than three months along with have an old meter, make sure someone will be collecting along with paying the bills. Getting a meter reinstalled will be no fun, unless you enjoy haggling.
inside bad old days, paying a bill meant going to the local PLN office along with often waiting in a long queue. which has largely changed since prepaid meters were introduced in 2005. The number of prepaid subscribers will be today about nine million along with growing. fresh residential buildings must use the prepaid meters, which are manufactured by seven companies. Credit can be purchased at banks, minimarts, post offices along with via ATMs, in amounts coming from Rp.20,000 to Rp.1 million.
The fresh meters allow customers to monitor daily consumption along with display a warning light when credit will be running low. When credit will be exhausted the power will be cut off. If you go on a long holiday, there’s no longer the risk of returning to find the meter has been removed. Customers can today also go to PLN’s website along with enter their subscriber number to see their monthly bill.
Some consumers with old meters still have bad experiences, despite PLN espousing slogans of “no bribes” along with “no gratuities”. One Chinese Indonesian man living in Menteng, Central Jakarta, called PLN when his power went off one night. Three technicians soon arrived in a car, spent a while examining the meter along with cables, along with announced they could need to fetch a replacement miniature circuit breaker. Upon their return, he says, they “discovered” the meter had been tampered with along with threatened to report him to police for fraud, unless he paid them to repair the newly damaged meter.
Trying to resolve problematic bills requires considerable tenacity. One expat was informed by his employer which he could have to start covering half of his residential electricity bill because the item had ballooned coming from Rp.2.5 million a month to Rp.5 million along with then Rp.7 million. He stopped paying the bills along with sought an explanation coming from his local PLN office. After a few visits, he was told there was no problem, so he should pay up or get disconnected. Unsatisfied, he went to head office, which admitted the meter reader had skipped a month which was today being added in arrears in instalments. which didn’t explain of all the increases, so they cut Rp.700,000 coming from his bill. The man suspected a problem with his 28-year-old meter along with had the item replaced yet his bills still seemed too high. Finally, he bought a digital multi-meter, which indicated he was receiving less than the required voltage of (+/-5%) 220V. Some PLN technical staff visited along with confirmed the supplied voltage was low. Then one day, 10 months after the initial complaint, his supply was upgraded.
No Incentive
PLN tries to have a ‘progressive’ electricity pricing system, in which low-income consumers supposedly pay a cheaper tariff. Power capacity for households will be installed at 450 volt-amperes for lightest users, then 900 VA, 1,300 VA along with 2,200 VA for heaviest users. The higher the installed capacity, the higher the charge per kilowatt hour (kWh) consumed. For example, a household with 450 VA capacity which uses 100 kWh will be charged Rp.40,620, while a household with 1,300 VA capacity will be charged Rp.79,000 for the same usage.
This kind of system encourages inefficient use of electricity among middle-class along with affluent consumers. Once a household includes a high installed capacity, say 1,300 VA, the charge doesn’t go down, even if electricity will be conserved, so an air conditioner might as well be left on all day. In my apartment, I’m hit using a minimum monthly charge, no matter how little power I use, so there’s zero financial incentive to conserve power. Fittingly, the ‘Electricity Saving Tips’ section of PLN’s website will be blank.
Critics say PLN could consider charging according to how much electricity will be actually used. In different words, the first 50 kWh per month should be billed at a low tariff, the next 50 kWh at a higher tariff, along with so on upward. This kind of way there could be no faking who’s poor, except by bypassing the meter, which will be another problem entirely.
Some thrifty householders have tried to reduce power bills by getting their installed capacity reduced, with the result which when they run a water heater simultaneously with an air conditioner, their capacity overloads along using a circuit breaker switch will be tripped.
Rising Demand along with Prices
among the largest producers of coal along with liquefied natural gas – along with with about 40% of the planet’s exploitable potential geothermal energy – Indonesia should be able to provide a reliable along with cheap supply of electricity. Unfortunately, the development of power plants will be being hampered by land acquisition problems along with different legal issues.
Demand for power will be growing at about 10% annually – about 4,500 megawatts – while supply will be growing at under 3% – about 1,600 MW, so rolling blackouts are inevitable. Indonesia was ranked 161st out of 183 countries inside ease of getting reliable electricity supply for business, in a 2011 World Bank report.
The situation will be worse outside Java along with Bali. Kalimantan along with Sumatra are key suppliers of coal, yet their towns experience higher prices along with more blackouts – up to 12 hours a day in some places. Many businesses have no choice yet to buy diesel-powered generators. Thousands of rural villages do not have any power. Farmers at a village in West Lampung grew tired of waiting along with built their own micro hydroelectric power station by damming a river along with installing a turbine.
PLN will be increasing electricity prices by 15% This kind of year, except for households with installed capacity of 450 VA to 900 VA. There are concerns the increases will spark steeper inflation. The government says the move will cut spending on electricity subsidies coming from $9.6 billion to $7.8 billion, along with the savings can be invested in energy supply networks. Money could also be saved by combating PLN’s “inefficiencies”, which cost $3.6 billion in 2011, according to a probe by the State Audit Agency.
BIO:
Kenneth Yeung’s last monthly electricity bill was Rp.144,107.
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The Power of One
The Power of One