World Bank partly finances hydropower plant project in Indonesia

JAKARTA: World Bank expressed its commitment in helping Indonesia to meet its electricity demand and to make it more reliable, affordable and environmentally friendly through Upper Cisokan Pumped Storage hydropower plant, the lender said in a release. The project will be the first facility in Indonesia. On this project, World Bank will directly cooperate with state-owned Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN). The plant is expected to supply more than 1.000 MW of peak-hour electricity to the Java-Bali power system.World Bank understood that electricity is an essential part for Indonesian to become a strong mid-income economic power in the next decade. Thus the project is expected to increase the peaking capacity in Java and Bali, to reduce oil dependency and to support economic growth for medium and long term. Leiping Wang, the World Bank Senior Energy Specialist said that the pumped storagewill make Indonesia one of very few developing countries to have such a power plant.In itsofficial statement, pumped storage systems work using two water reservoirs built at differing heights. Energy is stored by using pump turbines to transfer water from the low to the high reservoir, during off-peak hours. During periods of peak demand, the stored water in the high reservoir is then released through turbines to the low reservoir for hydroelectric power generation.The project willbenefit PLN as well sinceit will provide cheap electricity that produced during off-peak hours that can be transformed into valuable peak energy. Upper Cisokan is scheduled to be completed in 2016 with a total cost of US$800 billion. World Bank will provide loan facility in the amount of US$640 million and PLN will finance the remaining project cost of US$160 million. (T05)

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