Nagan Raya, 24 January 2025 – 100 days of Prabowo's leadership, STuEB urges the government to be serious about shutting down the power plant in Sumatra and accelerating the energy transition because people's suffering due to dirty energy electricity projects continues to fall.
STuEB Coordinator, Ali Akbar, stated that the 9 coal-fired power plants in Sumatra have had an impact on health, the social economy and even caused conflict.
"It was recorded that 2,803 people experienced acute respiratory infections, lung and skin diseases," said Ali.
Apart from that, impacts occur in the fishing economic sector. Fishermen experience a decrease in income because the fish have moved away. Fishermen spend more money going to sea than before and the results are little or no fish.
It doesn't stop there, the residents of Padang Kuas village, Seluma Regency, Bengkulu Province, are also affected by the operation of the High Voltage Air Line (SUTT) transmission network which connects the generator to the electricity network. After the generator trial process in 2019, the phenomenon of damage to residents' electronic goods began. It was recorded that 165 electronic items were damaged, 4 people were electrocuted.
What's even funnier is the LBH Padang lawsuit that was just decided by the Jakarta PTUN Judge who sued the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to increase sanctions, namely freezing or revoking the Ombilin PLTU environmental permit. There is no connection between the demands and the decision!!!
Regarding sanctions, several generating companies in Sumatra have also received sanctions for dumping FABA waste, but efforts to increase these sanctions are not visible.
"In fact, what can be seen is that the government is rolling out the red carpet for companies, by eliminating the FABA category as non-B3 waste," said Ali.
He gave an example, the Teluk Sepang coal PLTU, the Pangkalan Susu coal PLTU, the Keban Agung coal PLTU, the Semaran coal PLTU and other PLTUs that dispose of FABA waste without complying with environmental regulations and management.
The regional coordinator of the Jambi Three Brothers Institute, Deri Sopian, said that another impact came from the transportation of coal from the mine to the stockpile which had claimed victims.
"A year ago, in Jambi there was a traffic jam for 20 hours due to coal transportation using public roads. There were 176 traffic accidents which caused 112 people to die," said Deri.
Elsewhere, South Sumatra Clean Coordinator, Boni Bangun, stated that in South Sumatra there are 16 coal-fired power plants that are already operating, there are 2 power plants in the construction stage. In fact, electricity in South Sumatra is already in surplus.
"The excess power in South Sumatra is 1.2 GW, while in Sumatra itself, the excess power is 4.6 GW. "It is appropriate for the government to immediately shut down coal power plants," said Boni.
In line with Boni, President Prabowo Subianto stated that he would stop the PLTU within the next 15 years. He conveyed this at the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Tuesday (19/11/2024) local time.
Director of the APEL Green Aceh Foundation, Syukur Tadu, said that PLTU 1&2 Nagan Raya has narrowed the living space of the people there. Environmental pollution through smoke and dust resulting from combustion has threatened the health of residents, especially children
"The best solution is early retirement for PLTU 1&2 Nagan Raya," said Syukur Tadu.
Syukur also said that the practice of burning coal with biomass or what is known as co-firing carried out by PLTU 1&2 actually worsened environmental conditions, the increasingly dense smoke and more dust had invited the disaster of ISPA and threatened children's play environments. "It is time to switch to cleaner energy, because human lives are more valuable than PLTUs," he said.
This statement is more ambitious than the comprehensive policy and investment plan (JETP) with a renewable energy portion of 44% of the national energy mix in 2030, and achieving net-zero emissions for the electricity sector in 2050.
Based on this whole picture, it is time for President Prabowo as Head of State to immediately evaluate coal-fired power plants in Sumatra as a legal tool to turn off coal-fired power plants which have proven to be suffering for the people.