Jakarta, May 6, 2025 – All areas in Bali were reported to have experienced a power outage on Friday (2/5). The disruption to the electricity system not only caused difficulties for the community, but also had an impact on public services, including traffic jams at various points and flight delays at Ngurah Rai Airport.
Responding to this, the Executive Director of the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR) Fabby Tumiwa expressed the importance of conducting a serious investigation into the main cause of the power outage. Fabby assessed that an in-depth investigation was needed to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“I appreciate PLN’s efforts to restore electricity in Bali. However, the in-depth technical causes must be identified, considering that this blackout involved the Java-Bali interconnection system which has a very large capacity, around 340 MW. Disruption to this interconnection system is one of the most likely causes of the blackout, considering the large role played by the system in distributing electricity to Bali,” said Fabby in a Live Interview on Metro TV on Saturday (3/5).
Not only that, Fabby highlighted that a similar blackout also occurred in 2018, where there was a disruption to the Paiton PLTU and Pacitan PLTU power plants. This condition, said Fabby, indicates that Bali’s electricity system is very vulnerable to external disturbances. The heavy dependence on electricity supplies from Java makes Bali have “limited redundancy,” or limited power reserves, which has the potential to cause major blackouts if there is a disruption.
“For this reason, it is necessary to strengthen the electricity infrastructure in Bali, especially in terms of system resilience to external disturbances. The government and PLN need to work together to ensure that the electricity supply in Bali is more stable and does not depend entirely on the Java-Bali interconnection system. Increasing local generating capacity and developing renewable energy sources are strategic steps that must be considered to ensure the sustainability of electricity supplies in the future,” said Fabby.
