EBT Electric Developers Need Cheap Interest Loans

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - Electrical power producer from the Independent Private Power (EBT) / Independent Power Producer (IPP) complains about the difficulty of access to capital. Ironically, the difficulty occurs in the middle of the selling price of energy EBT considered too cheap in the figure 85% of the cost of production Local PLN.

Vice Chairman of Indonesian Renewable Energy Society (Meti) Sujana revealed with the facts as mentioned above, it is difficult to find financing facility that has interest below 11% if you want the project to profit. In fact, the facts on the ground prove that the average interest rate of banking credit is still above 11%.

"Banks are not able to set interest rates below 11 percent, we still need low interest rates to overcome the low electricity price," Sujana said in a press release in Jakarta on Tuesday (7/11/2017)

Not only banking, even Sujana said that the interest rate of PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (SMI), which is a government institution assigned to support infrastructure development, is also still very high and not yet entered into the calculation scale of IPP EBT. "SMI can be up to 13.5 percent because they add other risks, so add about 5 percent," he said.

Meanwhile, on the one hand besides high interest rates, tenor loan period also becomes another problem. According to Sujana, EBT development takes a long time, the fastest completion in three years while the loan term is only five years. Under these conditions, practically the borrower only has two years to return the investment. "So we cannot return it within two years of operation," he said.

Energy Watch Executive Director Mamit Setiawan said the government should have an effort to make investment in the EBT sector more attractive. One is working with national banks to provide a special budget with an affordable interest rate for the allocation of EBT development. "Of course, with government guarantees in there for banks to be willing," he concluded