PRIORITY FOR ENVIR0NMENTALLY FRIENDLY POWER PLANTS: JOKOWI

Kamojang,W Java, July 5 (Antara) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said the government will give priority for environmentally friendly power plants in its program to expand the country power generating capacity in the next five years. The government plans to build new power plants with a total capacity of 35,000 megawatts until 2019. The president said the government will gradually made change in its energy development program from relying more on coal to ones clean sources of energy. Coal fired plants would account for 90 percent of the new power plants to be built in the next five years, he said after officially inaugurating a new unit of the Kamojang geothermal power plant (PLTP) in this West Java area on Sunday. According to state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina the country has the potential to generate up to 28,000 MW of electricity from geothermal energy. "It is clean, but unfortunately we have never been focused on this. There are also wind energy, solar energy and biomass," he said. He said he has told the energy and mineral resources minister and the state enterprises minister to give priority to development of environmentally friendly power plants. He also said the government is considering incentives for investment in environmentally friendly power generating projects. "The incentive would be special to attract investors," he said. He said he would continue to follow the progress made toward reaching the target in power generating program to ensure to put an end to problem in shortage of power supply. The president symbolically inaugurated the start of construction of a number of other geothermal power projects in various areas of the country.