Batam and Bintan’s widespread outage last Monday was not due to the operational testing of a data center, according to President Director of PT PLN Batam Kwin Fo as quoted by a local daily.
“The widespread blackout that occurred on Monday (12/10) on Batam and Bintan islands had nothing to do with a data center. The information that there is testing or commissioning for data center operations, and it requires a lot of power, is not true at all,” Kwin reportedly told reporters in Batam yesterday, after news that the outage was linked to a data center testing was widely circulated in the community.
He added that the data center in question is still under development and is not expected to be fully operational in the near future. And if it does start operating, the operational capacity would not exceed 10 per cent of the total capacity of the data center, Kwin said. The data center was not named.
PLN Batam is Batam’s electricity utility, a subsidiary of Indonesia’s state-owned electricity company, PT PLN (Persero). Its full name is PT Pelayanan Listrik Nasional Batam; and it supplies electricity in Batam and surrounding areas.
Kwin Fo emphasized that Batam’s long-term electricity supply for data centers has been catered for in PLN Batam’s planning.
“We do not have a deficit or a shortage of supply. Our power reserves are still around almost 20 percent. Batam’s electricity load is targeted to increase from around 930 MW to more than 1,000 MW. Therefore, we estimate that by the end of 2027, the supply capacity will reach 1,200 to 1,300 MW,” he said.
Currently, Batam’s electricity system has a supply capacity of 930MW, with a load of around 780 MW. Thus, the power reserve is still around 20 percent.
The growth of electricity demand in Batam has exceeded 15 per cent, much higher than the 3-4 per cent growth of national electricity consumption. “We estimate that in the 2027-2032 range, the load will increase by around 300-400 MW. There is a growth of about 30 percent. To meet the demand, PLN Batam is taking steps to add additional power such as building a new Gas Power Plant (PLTG) and a new Solar Power Plant (PLTS),” he said.
Additionally, PLN Batam plans to use a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) or a battery-based energy storage system to support Batam-Bintan electricity. It takes only nnoseconds or milliseconds for the battery to release power which is much faster than a conventional plant such as coal-fired steam power plants (PLTU), Kwin Fo added.