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Residents of Jakarta’s Thousand Islands district will soon have a full access to grid electricity after state power firm PLN successfully completed and tested an undersea wire network, Governor Fauzi Bowo said on Tuesday.

At present, power supply in the chain of islands off the Jakarta coast is limited to 15 hours per day, with residents having to rely on portable generators for the rest of their power needs.

“Our target is that residents in the Thousand Islands will have access to electricity by the end of the year,” Fauzi said at City Hall.

“We will install lamps in public areas to illuminate the streets, and the diesel generator sets will serve only as a backup power source if the electricity supply gets cut.”

The power project that started in 2008 involved laying 76.9 kilometers of cables at a cost of Rp 215 billion ($23.7 million).

The first stage of the project was to build an electricity network from Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta to five islands in the southern part of the chain, but the power supply has been limited.

The final stage covers six islands in the northern part, including Panggang, Karya, Pramuka, Kelapa, Kelapa Dua and Harapan islands, and will ensure a full-time supply of power.

I Putu Ngurah Indiana, head of the Jakarta Industry and Energy Agency, said full-time electricity could be flowing to the islands as soon as next week.

“All the undersea electrical cables have been installed, as have the transformers,” he said.

“PLN is now testing the electrical network and if no problems occur, 24-hour electricity supply will be available to households there by next week.”

The only inhabited island in the chain not connected to the grid is Sabira, which is closer to Sumatra’s Lampung province than to Jakarta, he said.

The undersea network can carry six megawatts but PLN said two megawatts was enough to meet demand, Indiana said.

“Later, when the full-time power supply is available, tourism in the Thousand Islands will increase and the demand for electricity also will grow,” he said.

“We’ve allocated the spare capacity for when that happens.”