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Indonesian government mulls shuttering Suralaya plant to clear Jakarta's air

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Jakarta Post - August 16, 2024

Divya Karyza, Jakarta – Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan says the government is studying the possible early retirement of the Suralaya coal-fired power plant in Banten to reduce air pollution in Jakarta.

The regions surrounding the capital are Indonesia's industrial heartland, and Java is home to roughly 30 percent of coal-fired power plants nationwide, including some large power stations that only commenced operations last year, such as the Batang power plant.

The operating period of several coal-fired power plants on the island has also been extended beyond their initial plans, including the Suralaya plant in Cilegon, on the northwestern tip of Java.

"We discussed yesterday, [that] we will bring up the issue of the Suralaya coal power plant's retirement. We must shut this one down," Luhut said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Indonesia Oil and Gas Supply Chain Management Summit in Jakarta, Kompas.com reported.

"Suralaya pollutes the air and has been [operating] for more than 40 years, so we want to study [its early retirement]," he added.

Luhut went on to compare the unhealthy air in Jakarta to that in Nusantara, the country's future capital that is under construction in East Kalimantan, the former having an air quality index (AQI) value of between 120 and 200 while the latter had an AQI value of just 6.

The air in Nusantara "is far better. We hope Jakarta's [AQI value] will fall below 100 by closing the Suralaya coal plant", he said.

He explained that a significant amount of the country's Rp 38 trillion (US$2.43 billion) annual health expenditure had gone toward treating people for acute respiratory infections (ARIs), of which poor air quality was one risk factors.

Shutting down the Suralaya plant has been discussed for years with regard to Indonesia's energy transition, which the government is pursuing in partnership with developed countries and other stakeholders. These include the Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to accelerate the retirement of coal power plants before their lifetime limits.

Experts suggested that the government prioritize decommissioning aging and inefficient plants before seeking ways to decommission mega power plants that began operating within the last six years. But stakeholders decided instead to follow through with a plan to retire the 660-megawatt Cirebon 1 coal-fired power plant, which Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati estimated would cost $1.3 billion.

Jisman Hutajulu, electricity director general at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, said on Jan. 18 that PLN was considering shutting down units 3 and 4 at the Suralaya plant as part of the state electricity firm's planned coal phasedown.

Jisman explained at the time that the Java-Bali power grid had 4 gigawatts of excess electricity, and that this had prompted the ministry to postpone the operation start date of several new power plants by two to three years.

Source: https://asianews.network/indonesian-government-mulls-shuttering-suralaya-plant-to-clear-jakartas-air

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