"I want the consortium to begin the Sarulla geothermal project as soon as possible."Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Vice President Boediono has asked the consortium to speed up the Sarulla geothermal projects in North Sumatra in order to meet the nation`s electricity demand.
"I want the consortium to begin the Sarulla geothermal project as soon as possible," the vice president said here on Thursday.
Boediono said that the government strongly supports the development of geothermal projects because it has financial and non-financial benefits.
The Sarulla project completion process does take a very long time because too many obstacles that hamper the project.
"I am optimistic that Sarulla project would be able to work well after all parties including the ministers discuss this project in my office for several times," he said.
Boediono has previously asked a number of ministers about the continuation of this project and of the reports to meet a number of constraints and "debottlenecking".
The project would save the electricity subsidy at least four trillion Rupiah per year after the project begins to operate, Boediono said.
"That`s an incredible savings that I strongly support the development of other geothermal projects," he said.
Sarulla Geothermal Power Plant power is the largest power plant in the Accelerated development of 10,000 MW Power Plant phase II, where almost 50 per cent or 4,952 MW comes from geothermal.
"Sarulla geothermal power plant is the largest geothermal in Indonesia and even in the world that will accelerate the achievement of electrification in Indonesia," Boediono said.
According to Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik, the project requires an investment of around 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, funded by private participation, which consists of 20 percent equity and 80 percent soft loans from Japan Bank for International Corporation (JIBC), through the Independent power producer scheme.
Geothermal is becoming one of the national priorities of energy areas, given the potential that Indonesia electricity need is estimated to reach 29 thousand MW.
Currently Indonesia with an installed capacity of approximately 1,341 MW is the third largest producer of geothermal power in the world, after the United States and the Philippines.
With the phase II 10,000 MW program which almost half of the supply came from geothermal, Indonesia can be the world`s biggest geothermal producer.
(Uu.A050/O001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
