The renewable energy is a very important tool for the sustainability and the future developments on Teluk Alulu, Maratua Visit Day-2
(13/05/2015) Teluk Alulu is one of the villages in Maratua Island. From Pabahan Island we can visit this village using small boat. After 30 minutes of boating, the boat arrived in a calm and windy village.
Due to the obvious hardships of being an isolated electrical system, Teluk Alulu (a village in remote island of Maratua), it is a challenge to provide stable and quality electricity service to a small island, or group of islands. Because of their small size, this village often relies on fossil fuel power plants, most commonly diesel units, as these units are easily dispatched and reliable. However, the reliance on redundant distribution fuels for geographically isolated systems results in a higher cost for diesel more expensive when compared to mainland. The absence of self-reliance in such systems is an impoverishing factor that adds to the costs of insularity and diminishes the attractiveness of the
island economically. This special situation on Maratua Island requires particular strategies for using energy on the island with a mixed concept of sustainable energy consumption and applying of renewable energy sources.
To make islands more economically and environmentally sustainable, Government of Berau built up a local renewable sources of electricity generation to displace portions of electric energy generated by fossil fuels in December 2014, a Solar Power Grid (“Pembangkit Listrik Tenaga Surya/PLTS). This system regards to the special situation on the island which many renewable energy techniques are not suited for use on Maratua Island: because of the visitor opinion that wind turbines installation lessen the naturalness of this island; the production of biological gas is not possible because there is no agriculture; the installed photovoltaic cells on every suitable roof already detract the character from the beautiful landscape.
Before December 2015, mostly the electricity source is from the diesel, because solar panel can only turn on the light from 05.30 pm until 12.00 am. The diesels need 50 litres of solar per month to generate electricity for watching TV and using washing machine.
Now, people in Teluk Alulu are enjoying the benefit of solar energy. By paying monthly Rp 30.000, they can use daily electricity quota for 800 wH. This solar power distributes the electricity for 100 houses. At first installation, the government gave each house 3 LED lamps for each house. If a family want to use electricity appliance such as: TV, fan, phone charging, rice cooker, or blender, they store the energy to accumulator (storage battery). Each house is installed a power meter which display how much electricity quota they have. The increasing of using electricity appliance will make the quota last faster. Mostly, people in Teluk Alulu use TV for few hours, cooking using rice cooker, charging phone, and using lamps whole night.
There are considerable changes. There is lighting on street during whole night. Also, there isn’t noisy pollution because people in Teluk Alulu don’t use diesel generator, except if there is ceremonial party. Diesel is expensive, costing a family perhaps Rp 5.000.000 a month. Now, they can save this money.
Created by Epri Wahyu
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