S. Sulawesi's Bakaru hydropower plant's capacity to be raised to 191 MW

Makassar, South Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - The capacity of South Sulawesi`s Bakaru hydropower plant (PLTA) is soon to be increased to 191 MW with the installation of a new 65-MW turbine to be financed with a Japanese loan, a State Electricity Company (PT PLN) official said.

"The Japanese government has offered a loan of US$50 million (Rp450 billion) to the Indonesian government to fund the project," Herman Darnel Ibrahim, PT PLN director of transmission and distribution told the press here on Friday.

He said the Indonesian and Japanese governments were now holding negotiations on the project.

"We are still assessing several matters relating to the use of the Japanese loan," he added.

He said the power plant`s capacity needed to be expanded as it was the main source of electricity supply in the region meeting the needs of some 1.3 million people in South and West Sulawesi.

The power plant now had two turbines with a combined capacity of 126 MW.

Part of the Japanese loan would be used to finance the removal of sedimentation from the bottom of the hydropower plant`s water reservoir so that it could always contain enough water to keep the three turbines running.

The reservoir was now only holding some 700,000 cubic meters of water while it had been designed to contain six million cubic meters.