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Solar power plant groundbreaking in Bali Mandara Toll Road. (ANTARA/HO-Jasa Marga) - 

PT Bukit Asam and PT Jasa Marga will build a solar power plant along the Bali Mandara Toll Road to support Indonesia's G20 Presidency in 2022 and the efforts to reduce global carbon emissions.

Business Director of Jasa Marga, Reza Febriano, stated that the Bali Mandara Toll Road, as one of the infrastructures that will support the 2022 G20 Presidency, has grown increasingly environment-friendly with the construction of the solar power plant to source the energy for operational needs of this toll road.

"Reducing global carbon emissions, which was one of the focuses of Indonesia's G20 Presidency, is our concern and commitment," Febriano noted in a written statement received here on Saturday.

He deemed the initiative as aligning with the idea of sustainable energy transition, which is one of the three focuses of the G20 agenda. This view motivated the cooperation with Bukit Asam to develop the solar power plant. This project contributed to the realization of Jasa Marga Group's sustainable toll road efforts.

Director of Business Development at Bukit Asam, Rafli Yandra, also views the power plant as a form of collaborative effort to offer clean and sustainable energy.

The project kicked off with the groundbreaking of the solar power plant at the Ngurah Rai Toll Gate (GT) on the Bali Mandara Toll Road. The event was also a follow-up to the memorandum of understanding signed by the two State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) on February 2, 2022.

The solar power plant along the Bali Mandara Toll Road will be built by Bukit Asam through its subsidiary, PT BEI, to support the business and operational activities of PT JBT, which is a subsidiary of Jasa Marga.

It has a maximum capacity of 400 kilowatt-peak (kWp). Construction of the power plant will commence at the Ngurah Rai Toll Gate, which would then be continued to two other Toll Gates: Nusa Dua and Benoa. Solar panels will be installed at six locations, each at the entry and exit for the motorbikes at three toll gates on the Bali-Mandara Toll Road.

The length of the solar panels on each of these locations is one kilometer. The electricity generated from this power plant will later become an environmentally friendly source of electricity for public street lighting, operational offices, and also toll gates on the Bali Mandara Toll Road. Throughout its construction, Jasa Marga had maintained the safety and comfort of users of the Bali Mandara Toll Road, especially motorcyclists, by ensuring no disturbances in the lane and that they operate optimally according to the minimum service standards.

The project was targeted for completion in July 2022.

The Bali Mandara Toll Road management has also made other eco-friendly programs to support the G20 Presidency in Bali Province, such as planting around 750 thousand mangrove plants//ANT