Under the Action 2020 program, IBCSD, Garuda Indonesia and Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) together created a program which promotes energy conservation through the utilization of renewable energy for sizeabe communities or productive area, namely the ”Construction of Microhydro Power Plant for Electrification in Pakandangan, Garut, West Java” program. At that time, the village has not received electricity from PLN (Perusahaan Listrik Negara).
This program aimed to provide electrification throughout one of the most remote area in West Java, Pakandangan, in order to help improve the villagers’ quality of life, specifically their local economy. At the same time, this program utilizes Microhydro Power Plant which can turn the energy produced from the flow of water in small river streams to hydro electric power. The powerplant has 25KW/25.000 Watt capacity in contrast to the 4500 watt capacity required by the villagers for daily usage, distributed to each houses and bulidings in the village. The rest of the electricity is used to run the rice mill machines in the village. This way, the villagers who mainly plant rice in the paddy fields can now produce rice products more efficiently.
At least 20 households have received electricity from the microhydro power plant, and 30 more households have expressed their wish to move back into the village after this program. This showed the direct impat of this program i.e. reducing urbanization level from the village.
