BAPPENAS STUDIES KALIMANTAN-JAVA MARINE CABLE

Palangkaraya, Feb 19 (ANTARA) - The National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) will soon conduct a feasibility study of the construction of a marine power transmission cable between Kalimantan and Java starting from Kapuas, Central Kalimantan.

"A Bappenas team will soon start the survey. Under the initial plan, the marine cable will stretch in the Java Sea from Kapuas to Surabaya covering a distance of 400 kilometers," Central Kalimantan Governor Agustin Teras Narang said here Friday.

The project was initially proposed by Teras Narang and the other governors of Kalimantan in a Cooperation Forum on Revitalization and Accelerated Regional Development of Kalimantan.

Teras said many similar projects had been built in many European countries.

In Indonesia, similar projects had also been built for the Java-Bali, Java-Madura, and Kepulauan Seribu power grids.

Teras also said that Kalimantan is the biggest supplier of coal for power plants because 90 percent of the coal supply for power plants, especially in Java island, came from the mines in Kalimantan.

When production of the mines in Kalimantan had been disrupted, or disrupted sea transportation caused the power plants in Java island to often suffer from coal supply shortages, a power crisis is the consequence.

Therefore, Teras believed that the building of big scale power plants needs to be focused on Kalimantan for the reason of efficiency.

"It would be easier to build the power plants at mine entrances such as in Kalimantan, and their power is transmitted by marine cable to Java," he said.

Under such circumstances, the government and state power utility PLN no longer need to worry about coal transportation cost or possible delayed supplies due to bad weather conditions in the sea.

Besides, the price of electricity generated by using coal would also be lower because the price of coal is cheaper in Kalimantan than in Java.