How Indonesia’s coal policies left its own citizens in the dark

How Indonesia’s coal policies left its own citizens in the dark Hours-long blackouts since last week have disrupted the lives and businesses of millions of subscribers of state-owned utility firm PLN in Java The answer, analysts say, lies less in a coal shortage than in the rules and incentives governing who gets to buy it, at what price and when. Hours-long blackouts since last week have disrupted the lives and businesses of millions of subscribers of Indonesia’s state-owned utility firm PLN in Java, the centre of the US$1.5 trillion economy. PLN attributed these outages to technical problems at two large power plants on the island operated by independent producers. “[The two plants] were forced [offline] to disconnect from the Java electricity system,” PLN President Director Darmawan Prasodjo told reporters on June 19. He said PLN was facing a coal supply gap, especially for the medium-ranked coal used by its power plants. According to the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, coal accounted for 64.87 per cent of Indonesia’s total electricity generation as of April.