Indonesia's Electricity Policy is a mistery, still!

In Europe, early week of March has been shaken up by a big news on energy sector. The biggest German's electricity and gas company, Eon, agreed to break up itself under pressure from EC competition authority. In short, Eon agreed to liberalise energy market as reported by FT and IHT (Feb/29/08). This shows that German company has no hesiation at all to start a new era for the electricity developement?

What about Indonesia? Ours is a pity. While PT.PLN (persero) as the national operator fails to meet the task to supply a sustainable electricity (brown out and black out are now exist cross the country), the government is now under attack from energy subsidy nightmare, including electricity subsidy. Recntly, PLN staffs has gone a bit too far to the street to protest the idea of liberalizing the company. So, the question then...where are you going to PLN?

Regards,

ES
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Eon agrees break-up to appease Brussels
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d8801fe-e669-11dc-8398-0000779fd2ac.html

By Richard Milne in Frankfurt, Ed Crooks in London and,Sarah Laitner in Brussels
Published: February 29 2008

Eon, Germany's largest electricity and gas group, yesterday agreed to break itself up under pressure from the European Commission's competition auth-orities, in an unexpected boost for Brussels' drive to liberalise energy markets.
Eon is offering to sell its electricity grid and end its business model of combining power generation and transmission. It is also planning to sell about 20 per cent of its power plant capacity in Germany, although it could swap assets with a foreign competitor.
The proposed settlement caused consternation among German politicians. Germany and France had hoped their opposition would be sufficient to kill the Commission's plans to "unbundle", or break up, integrated groups. European energy ministers discussed the plan at a meeting yesterday, which ended without reaching agreement.
Peter Hinze, a German economy minister, said in Brussels: "It's very astounding what happened here. The timing coincidence of these events, at a moment when the Commission is trying to force through a very sharp position against a minority [of countries], is a very questionable game."
Other integrated European energy groups reacted angrily. EdF of France and RWE and EnBW of Germany said they would continue to oppose plans to force them to sell their grid activities. "What Eon has done is unbelievable and has made everybody here very unhappy. It couldn't have come at a worse time," said a senior executive at a big European utility.
The disposals are designed to settle antitrust investigations that could have cost Eon up to about €7bn in fines. The assets are worth about €5bn combined, according to analysts. The European Commission has been pursuing a twin-track strategy to energy liberalisation, using both legislative proposals and antitrust action.
The Commission welcomed the proposed settlement and said in a joint statement with Eon: "These proposals, if adopted, would structurally change the electricity sector in Germany and could spur competition in the sector to the benefit of domestic and industrial customers."
Ofgem, the energy regulator in the UK, which has been one of the strongest advocates of un-bundling, said: "Eon's announcement today makes it very difficult for the other large energy companies to argue for retaining control of their transmission businesses."
Vattenfall Europe, the German arm of the Swedish utility, said it was also considering selling its grid as one of several options. National Grid, the owner of the electricity network in the UK that is one of the possible buyers of Eon's grid, welcomed the move.
Eon's shares closed about 1 per cent lower last night but some analysts suggested the sale could give investors a more favourable perception of the company.