JAKARTA (Yosefardi) – MAXPOWER Indonesia, Navigat Group’s power generation business, today launches the first marine supplied compressed natural gas (CNG) power plant in Indonesia.
The 6 MW plant, located on Bintan Island, cost US$4 million to develop and construction was completed in only two months. It is fully owned and operated by MAXPOWER Indonesia and was financed through shareholder loans. PT PLN (Persero) (PLN), the Indonesian government-owned electricity grid, fully endorsed this project and agreed to a five year offtake agreement.
MAXpower Indonesia’s new Bintan plant will be operated with CNG supplied by PLN Batam and transported to Bintan by ship. The plant’s output, derived from two GE (General Electric) Jenbacher gas engines, will be supplied directly to PLN.
The state-of-the-art CNG fuelled power generation technology will reduce carbon emissions by half and production costs by 35% compared to traditional diesel-fired power, enabling PLN to make annual savings of US$4.5 million from this project alone.
PLN is targeting to replace the existing 10,000 MW diesel- and oil-fired power capacity across Indonesia as soon as possible to reduce its current deficit and carbon emissions.
MAXpower’s CNG technology is fully endorsed by PLN, and could serve to replace the existing 1,000 MW produced by diesel generators across multiple islands, thereby potentially generating up to US$750 million in annual savings for PLN.