PLN Involves Military in Securing High-Voltage Power Lines
Translator
Editor
11 September 2019 07:50 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - State-owned electricity firm PLN confirmed that it will involve military assistance from the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) to guard and clear the lands in the vicinity of the extra-high-voltage power line (Sutet).
The military involvement follows a memorandum of understanding of the partnership between PLN, the TNI, and the Indonesian State Intelligence Agency (BIN) today.
“Because they are actually experts in the field of facing social issues,” said PLN acting-head Sripeni Inten Cahyani following a hearing (RDP) with the House of Representatives (DPR) energy commission at the DPR headquarters on Tuesday.
According to Sripeni, the involvement of military soldiers will be on the public dissemination upon clearing lands in the vicinity of extra-high-voltage power lines. The intelligence will be deployed if additional efforts are needed to face certain issues.
The military soldiers will escort PLN employees in clearing trees that might cause future problems beneath a Sutet tower. This may seem like a common problem but has actually caused several major problems in the field, especially if the trees that need to be cleared are owned by locals.
A more pressing issue is that the Java massive blackout on August 4, 2019, is said to have been caused by trees that exceeded its safe height limit underneath a 500 Kv Sutet tower in Central Java.
FAJAR PEBRIANTO