The turquoise, nutrient-rich waters off the coast of the Indonesian island of Lombok are perfect for growing pearls. But when pearl farmer Fauzi Se wanted to take advantage of nature’s bounty and expand production at his jewelry business, he was stymied by a problem only humans can solve — his workshop didn’t have enough electricity to power his machines. “We recently ordered casting equipment to help with our pearl production,” Se says. “But, after the goods had arrived, it turned out we were not ready on the electricity side.”
This is not an unusual problem in Indonesia. The world’s fourth most populous country desperately needs to send more power to its 255 million residents spread across 18,000 islands. But the country’s geography creates a special set of challenges. You can’t just build big power plants and string wires across the sea.
Instead of building a conventional power plant, which can take years, GE Power deployed on Lombok two “fast power” units last year. These truck-mounted mobile gas turbine generators can start producing more than 25 megawatts each in less than a month after delivery.
The units arrived July 2, 2016 and when GE Reports visited the site three months later, they were already connected to the grid and producing electricity. A team of field engineers working for GE were completing final environmental tests of the units, which can burn both diesel and natural gas.
“Because of the archipelago, you need to have lots of microgrids,” says Matt Patterson, an Australian engineer who spent the summer setting up the units in Lombok. “That’s where you see the benefits of fast power.”
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