DPR urges PLN and Paiton I to renegotiate price

The Commission VIII of the Legislative Council (DPR) has urged state owned electricity company PLN to renegotiate the price of power it will buy from Paiton I power plant, saying the current price of 4.93 U.S. cent was too high.

"We urges PLN to renegotiate the price with Paiton I. The price of 4.93 U.S. cent is unrealistic,? a member of the commission, Tunggul Sirait said. According to him, the fair price should be between 3.9 to 4.1 cent per kWh.

Tunggul also asked PLN to involve in calculating the reasonable price for the power to be purchased by the state electricity company from Paiton I so that it could be used as a reference for the pricing of the power to be bought from other independent producers.

He also said that the Paiton I power plant should be investigated for possible corruption practices during its construction.

Compared to the prices of power sold by independent power producers in other ASEAN countries, the price of Paiton I is the highest, he said. According to him, the power price in other ASEAN counties range only between 3.1 and 3.3 U.S. cent per kWh. (*)