11/29/2023 0 Comments Per capita oil production by countryKahyapu village secretary Siswandi, 31, said that since the solar power plant was installed, the plant had been damaged on three occasions. In Kahyapu, the solar plant was still operational when the Post visited in May, albeit showing signs of wear and tear that the villagers had to repair using money out of their own pockets. (Bottom) The house of Kartini, 81, a villager, who relies on the solar power plant. (Top) An electricity meter for the communal solar power plant. Suprik said that by 2017 the solar panels in Banjarsari were only operable during sunny days, and by night time the charge stored in the batteries installed at the plant only lasted until about an hour after midnight.įast forward to 2023, the panels, located amid dense forests and open fields of sparse rice fields and shrubs, are covered with moss and debris.Īs no villagers have the knowledge or skills to operate the solar panels, nobody knew what to do when the batteries started to leak and became damaged. Those connected to the solar plant paid about Rp 25,000(US$1.64) each month in maintenance fees, each house receiving 25 watts of electricity credit daily, which was enough for a few electric lamps. When the Banjarsari solar panels were fully operational, they supplied electricity to around 170 households in the village, out of a total of 276 households. “This solar panels arrived, delivering affordable electricity to villagers’ houses,” Suprik, the village head of Banjarsari, told the Post in May. Here is the story about how the island has strived to escape from a life in the dark, from limited electricity that comes from solar panels to all-day lighting generated by diesel-fueled power plants.Ī villager roasts raw melinjo nuts to make chips, which are a common food item produced on the island.ĭarkness eventually gave way to light in 2014, Banjarsari village received solar panels and batteries from the central government, which, it was hoped, would bring light into the village. Located southwest of Sumatra, Enggano, in Bengkulu province, is one of the 42 inhabited outermost islands in Indonesia that had been getting by with little or no electricity for most of the country’s 77 years of independence.īordering only the Indian Ocean to its west, and 160 kilometers across the channel from the provincial capital of Bengkulu city, it is home to around 4,000 people who have only enjoyed full-time electricity since early 2023. Most of them are in remote areas, including small islands located in the outermost regions of the country. Major islands like Sumatra and Java have even experienced oversupply as state-run electricity company PLN continues to expand its grid.īut there are still islands and areas in which more than 300,000 households live with minimum or no electricity. The government states that the country’s electrification rate stood at 99.63 percent in 2022. Indonesia has made a great leap in electrification, with almost all of its over 13,000 islands now wired up.
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