The Wärtsilä Indonesia workshop. |
As with many other parts of Asia, Indonesia is now facing power supply problems as its economy develops and the quality of life of the local population improves. With limited funds available for immediate heavy investments in new power generation, it is vital that Indonesia maximizes the full potential of its current generation facilities.
Indonesia’s GDP is growing at an annual rate of 2-4%. At the same time, however, there has been no significant growth in installed power generation capacity since the start of the financial crises in Asia in 1997.
The result of the lack of investment in the power sector, is that the country’s electricity reserves are getting smaller and smaller, so the situation is becoming increasingly critical. The short money supply has also meant that power companies have tried to reduce service costs to the bare minimum. However, after a few years of virtually no maintenance the plants have started to experience breakdowns and outages.
Power companies are gradually allocating additional resources for maintenance activities, especially since there is no possibility to renew or replace power generation equipment. Although preventative maintenance and condition-based maintenance have not been an inherent feature of the country’s power industry in the past, the industry is now recognizing the many benefits of establishing a strong power plant service culture at the power generation facilities.
Logistically challenging
Indonesia is an enormous country. With a population of about 244 million and a land mass of 1,919,440 square kilometres spread over more than 17,000 islands, it presents many logistical problems to its power companies and the energy hungry industries that need a constant and reliable supply of power to survive.
The problems of supply logistics become even more acute in the more remote regions and islands where power needs present a wide range of difficult and challenging problems to the companies delivering power supply solutions.
Servicing the diverse installed base
Wärtsilä’s involvement with Indonesia’s power industry goes back to 1969 when Wärtsilä’s subsidiary Stork Werkspoor Diesel was active in the country through a local agent, PT Kiagoos. Since then Wärtsilä Indonesia has installed 1030 engines, giving an aggregate output of 2760 MW.
Wärtsilä, with its long history in the country, has an extremely diverse installed base. There are currently 26 different Wärtsilä engine types in power plants across the country. To serve this broad engine base Wärtsilä has a service pool of some 65 skilled engineers and technicians to provide the necessary service to its customers.
In hard economic times, many customers do not follow the factory recommended maintenance schedules for the equipment. This will often cause trouble and breakdowns. Wärtsilä’s personnel are continually explaining the benefits of a clear and strong service philosophy to customers and demonstrating the security of supply that a service culture will provide.
In order to become more flexible in the planning of its service projects, Wärtsilä are giving strong emphasis to training of its field service engineers. The more hands-on experience engineers have in multiple engine types, the easier it is to provide service crews who can bring the high level of expertise that the customers are increasingly demanding, on time.
A plant rehabilitation was recently executed under the ORET project at the Karang Asam power plant of PLN. |
Restoring performance
Roughly 50% of Wärtsilä’s installed base is with Peruhuman Listrik Negara (PLN), the state-owned local utility company, and the other 50% with the private sector. Wärtsilä has worked closely with PLN to design and develop scenarios to help PLN restore old plants to good operating condition.
Wärtsilä has been rehabilitating nine power plants for PLN and is offering to follow up these projects with maintenance contracts. Wärtsilä signed a total maintenance contract with PLN for two old power plants some years ago. The plants are now running at higher load and availability than for many years.
PLN have expressed their satisfaction with the results of this work and have indicated their interest in extending these TMC contracts. Wärtsilä is also looking at other plants within PLN for similar contracts.
First operations & maintenance agreements
Another field of activity Wärtsilä is focusing on is fuel conversion. Due to current fuel subsidies many plants are still running on light fuel oil (LFO). But these fuel subsidies are being lowered over time and by 2006 they should have completely disappeared. At that time the fuel market is projected to be opened to other companies besides the state-owned oil company Pertamina. Some private companies in addition to PLN have shown interest in fuel conversions.
The business indicators are good for the future as Wärtsilä has signed its first operations & maintenance (O&M) agreements in Indonesia. The company is currently negotiating a new O&M agreement with an Indonesian mining company for a new 102 MW Wärtsilä power plant and an existing 50 MW power plant.
At Wärtsilä Indonesia we are committed to providing world-class service while understanding the local requirements of our customers. We have already proven throughout the years that we are here for the long haul, in difficult as well as prosperous times. That is Wärtsilä’s commitment to its customers and to the beautiful country of Indonesia and its people.
by Marc Omes, President Director, PT Wärtsilä Indonesia
