SEMINYAK ~ Large residential areas of Bali were plunged into darkness at the fall of dusk on Wednesday, with power not restored till close to midnight, as electricity supplies drop due to a fall-off in fuel coming to the island, PLN said.

PLN, the state electricity firm, said bad weather over the past week had prevented fuel tankers from traveling and that as a result, power stations had insufficient fuel to generate electricity.

The head of PLN in Bali, Hendra Saleh, said there was a high probability that hours-long blackouts would happen until the end of February.

“The bad weather is forecast to continue until the end of this month, and therefore some power stations, such as the ones in Tanjung Jati and Paiton (both in East Java), will be reduced to standby until supplies come in. This doesn’t only affect Bali but also Java,” he said.

There would be a dip in the Java-Bali electricity grid of 1,000 megawatts, he added.

Saleh urged business and residents to use electricity sparingly, and said that on Wednesday, some power lines had been shut down in Bali, with more to be taken offline on Thursday.