Eight-hour power blackout hits Indonesian capital

Owen Howell 

The Indonesian capital was thrown into chaos early this month when a major power blackout spread across the entire city and surrounding areas. It began at around midday on August 4 and continued until 8 p.m., when power was gradually restored.

For some parts of Jakarta, however, the power supply only lasted two or three hours before it shut down again. Large sections of the city remained in darkness into the following morning.

The blackout affected tens of millions of people across Greater Jakarta and in the neighbouring provinces of West Java and Banten. Power outages are by no means rare occurrences in Jakarta but they are usually short-lived and confined to particular areas in the city.

Some offices, shopping centres, and apartments were able to use their own back-up generators as did hospitals and the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, which continued throughout the day without hindrance.

The city’s train service and the newly-opened mass rapid transit (MRT) system, on the other hand, came to a sudden halt, leaving passengers stranded at stations after being evacuated from the trains. Over 800,000 commuters use the regional train service per day on a weekend. Buses then replaced the crippled metro system, but could only accept cash as digital payments were not working.

Traffic lights stopped across most of the city, worsening the notorious congestion of Jakarta’s roads. Traffic jams soon developed at many crowded intersections. ATMs were down, while sporadic disruptions to major mobile phone networks, including Telkomsel, XL, and Indosat, left people unable to connect to the internet.

PLN (Perusahaan Listrik Negara–State Electricity Company) issued an initial statement explaining that the blackout started when seven gas turbines from various power plants were tripped and shut down. A few hours later, it revealed that faulty transmission circuits on the Unggaran-Pemalang line in Central Java were responsible for causing the voltage drops that hit the turbines.

PLN, which is a government-owned corporation and has a nationwide monopoly on electricity distribution, generates most of the country’s electrical power. PLN electricity supplies are more reliable in Java where the grid is better developed than elsewhere in the country because most areas are serviced by localised systems, often powered by small diesel plants.

Power outages, however, are still common in Java. In 2005, a widespread five-hour blackout in Java and Bali affected around 100 million people.

While sudden extended blackouts were numerous under the former Yudhoyono government, Joko Widodo promised from the beginning of his presidency to improve the country’s power infrastructure.