Indonesia’s easternmost area, Papua, the furthest area away from access to electricity, now has achieved significant transformation thanks to PLN’s enormous effort. The company’s effort on electrification has brought lots of bright lights in Jayapura, and also brought new light to Papua’s most remote area. With the existence of electricity running down through Papua’s jungle and remote village opens a new opportunity to develop this area. Not just to give access to electricity, but also creates new platforms to raise the local economy and social life. With the existence of electricity, it will open a lot of positive changes thoroughly in every sector, such as economy and Papua’s own culture can be positively changed.
There were lots of programmes to support more electricity throughout Papua. One of them was called “Tambah Daya/More Power” Programme. It was one of the programmes to open the veil of marginalization in Papua. Based on the head unit in Papua and West Papua, it was said that there are already 2.917 customers that have enjoyed this programme. Another one of the governments’ efforts to raise electrification ratio and to help poor families acquire electricity was through the Bantuan Pasang Baru Listrik (BPBL) programme in Southwest Papua Province. This programme has a purpose to provide poor families in Southwest Papua access to equitable energy.
The Central Government has a target as big as 6% of BPBL’s installation could help 285 receivers in Central Papua. Fortunately, they managed to do it because as much as 304 people in Central Papua were covered by the BPBL programme. Wanhar as the Director of Electricity Program Development explains that in the third quarter of 2022, electrification ratio in general reached 99,60% although there are some parts which haven’t been electrified and mostly spreaded around remote area.
Despite the achievements that the State Electricity Company (PLN) has made to illuminate Papua, there are some issues which still need to be solved, because not every household in Papua has the facility to access electricity. Based on Databoks’ data, there are some parts of Papua Provinces which has not been touched by electricity. If we summarized the data, there are 140 villages in every province in Papua which isn’t supported by electricity:
- Highland Papua : 56 Villages
- Central Papua : 47 Villages
- Southern Papua : 16 Villages
- Southwest Papua : 12 Villages
- Papua : 9 Villages
With the development of electricity in Papua, it can create a chain reaction to make Papua and its surroundings more developed. The availability of enough resources will be the main thing to boost Papua’s economic aspect. Because of that, a sufficient amount of electricity is the most important and the most vital thing and has to be one of the main things to make Papua better than before. Because electricity is a main source of energy for everyone to do their daily routine and jobs. Although geographically Papua is rich in resources. It will be a challenge for the government to provide a generous amount of electricity to boost Papua’s potential.
West Papua Now 