In 2006, the Government of Indonesia launched a coal fired power plant development program, known as the “Crash Program.” Soon thereafter, Fabby Tumiwa and Dr. Nengah Sudja released a paper that questioned the crash program, and predicted it would would face significant implementation barriers.
The paper was written by two electricity sector experts: Fabby Tumiwa (the Executive Director of the Institute for Essential Services Reform and an EGI Indonesia partner) and Dr. Nengah Sudja (the former Head of Research at PLN, the Indonesian State Electricity Company and former secretary to Indonesia’s preparation commission on nuclear power plant construction).

The Crash Program’s objective is to build in total 10,000 MW capacity of coal fired power plant, 6,900 MW in Java and Bali, and 3,100 MW outside Java and Bali from 2006 to 2010. Government of Indonesia was very optimistic that all the plants would be completed by 2010. Two years after the deadline, only 3,500 MW will be completed by the end of 2012, and only 1,000 MW have been supplied to the grid by mid-2012. Despite these delays, the Government of Indonesia started to plan additional 2nd phase Crash Program in 2009, which aimed to build an additional 10,000 MW, in which 70% of the plant would be geothermal. The first crash program failed to meet its target, and yet no formal evaluation has been conducted to review the entire program, nor to review the performance of power plants.

The July 2012 edition of Petrominer, a prominent Indonesian energy magazine, focused on the 10,000MW Crash Program as its cover story. This story featured an interview with Fabby Tumiwa about the failures of the crash program.