Indonesia: The power crisis

The State Electricity Company (PLN) imposed rotating power blackouts in Jakarta and surrounding suburbs starting Wednesday because power supplies across its Java-Bali interconnected system suffered a deficit of 1,000 megawatt.

The reason? Four PLN generation plants have been forced to operate far below their installed capacity after unusually high sea waves interrupted coal and diesel supplies to its power stations.

This list of crumbling infrastructure can go on and on.
The power supply capacity has increasingly been critical, especially since 2004, when the annual economic growth accelerated to more than 5 percent.

The government made the right move in 2006, when it launched a crash program to build an additional power-generation capacity of 10,000 megawatt, but this program seemed to have been bogged down in bureaucratic inertia, cumbersome tender procedures and political bickering over government guarantees for project financing.

Without leadership and firm decision-making on the part of the government, the crash program could really “crash” into failure and our electricity supply will remain in a critical condition.

We find it simply flabbergasting the government has not yet grasped the urgency and magnitude of the problems caused by our crumbling infrastructure in transportation and electricity, which has often been cited as one of the biggest barriers to new investment.

Jakarta Post