PLN to Assist Myanmar in Cutting Power Losses

Indonesia’s state-owned electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) announced on Tuesday that it would assist Myanmar’s Ministry of Electric Power to cut energy losses in the former pariah nation. PLN-Myanmar cooperation director, Harry Hartoyo, said in a statement that the rate of power losses or the loss of produced electricity in Myanmar was still high at around 26 percent. The Jakarta-based utility firm, he said, aimed to push down the losses’ rate to less than 20 percent in the next two years.

“PLN, through its special team, will make Yangon our pilot project to cut down the losses. The assistance will be in the form of a feasibility study, sharing our experience and knowledge, training, and establishing a strategy to improve the efficiency in power distribution,” the executive said.

In addition, Harry said, the cooperation might also extend to other areas such as building infrastructure for call centers for utility services, gas supply and power plants.
In the Southeast Asia region, PLN was quite successful in managing power losses, shown by the 9 percent rate of losses it booked by the end of 2012, which was lower than other developing countries such as India (24 percent per year) and Brazil (16 percent) per year.

Separately, Myanmar’s Deputy Minister U Aung Than Oo, who led the Myanmar delegation team’s visit to PLN’s headquarters in Jakarta, said that his office was hoping PLN could help cut their losses.

“Myanmar is currently experiencing a quite similar situation to what PLN faced a couple of years ago. Now, we see PLN has managed to cut down its power losses rate into one digit,” he said in a statement.