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Muna sees CUC cost savings, sales increase
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Posted on Jun 23 2008
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. will increase it sales and realize cost savings in entering a $6 million contract with a Singapore company for temporary power generation.
CUC executive director Antonio Muna told the media yesterday that the 15 megawatts that Aggreko International Projects Ltd. will produce would allow CUC to meet Saipan’s current 41 megawatts demand.
Muna said this would eliminate load shedding and blackouts that the island is currently experiencing.
“Once you meet the demand, we don’t have the load shedding issue anymore. [That] allows us to sell more [power]. We basically have power 24 hours a day,” he said.
The executive director said CUC would also realize some cost savings, especially those incurred on personnel overtime and other expenses.
With respect to the contract’s impact on the power rate, he assured that they are going to neutralize it and see what particular areas would allow them savings and an increase in revenues.
Muna said CUC needs to pay a $1.5 million deposit to Aggreko in three months.
Once CUC makes the payment, Aggreko will have a maximum of 36 days to set up the power engines near Power Plant 1 in Lower Base.
“They basically provide maintenance. CUC’s obligation is just to provide for space. We provide the space, they set up shop and we start paying 5 cents per kilowatt an hour. The only thing that we provide [Aggreko] is fuel,” he said.
CUC can then either rest the power engines that are operable at Power Plant 1 or keep them in reserve, Muna said.
“It will allow us to protect those assets and not have further damage to engines and bring them into the rehabilitation cycle,” he added.
Muna said with three proposers on the power rental project, two companies responded.
“We evaluated their proposals and found that Aggreko was the most responsive to our needs and the most affordable,” the executive director said.
