State Electricity Company's Customers Up 16 Pct

Jakarta, July 31 (ANTARA) - PT PLN, the state electricity company, has recorded an increase of 16 percent in the number of its customers in the first semester this year. The company`s president director, Nur Pamudji, said here on Monday from January to June, 2012, the number of the company`s customers rose by 1.868 millions. "In the first semester in 2011 the hike was only 1.609 millions," he said. Compared with the target set for the semester at 1.219 million customers the increase reached 53 percent. By June the total number of PLN customers outside its subsidiaries reached 47.5 millions and six millions of them or 12.6 percent are pre-paid system customers. Nur said the rise in the number of customers has made electricity consumption in the first semester this year rose 10.2 percent to 84.74 terawatts (TWh) compared with 76.87 TWh in the same period last year. Compared with the target set for the first semester of 2012 at 82.64 TWh, the consumption rose above 2.54 percent. He said the use of coal as source of energy for power generation by June 2012 was 50.4 percent up from 43 percent in the same period last year. "The use of oil was down from 23 percent to 16.5 percent," he added.