Purchase of new power engines for Rota and Saipan approved

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors approved yesterday CUC management’s request to cancel an emergency procurement for temporary power on Rota and instead purchase a new 2-megawatt engine under an emergency procurement.

At the same special meeting, the board also approved management’s request to repair a power engine at Power Plant 1 in Lower Base on Saipan and purchase a new 6-megawatt power engine under an emergency procurement.

Purchase of a 2-megawatt engine for Rota is estimated to cost between $600,000 and $700,000, while a 6-megawatt engine for Saipan is around $6 million.

Upon the board’s invitation, Gov. Arnold I. Palacios joined the directors in the special meeting’s executive session.

CUC acting executive director Betty G. Terlaje, in an interview with Saipan Tribune, said the board previously authorized management to do an emergency procurement for a minimum of 2 megawatts of temporary power on Rota.

Terlaje said when they did that, the result came back that to get temporary power on Rota, it takes about the same time to also buy a new engine.

“So that’s why I asked the board that we cancel the emergency procurement of temporary power and instead do an emergency procurement to purchase the engine because it’s about the same time,” she said.

Terlaje said the procurement will take a little longer because of the bidding process that takes 30 days and then there is a need to evaluate.

She said doing an emergency procurement shortens the period.

“We don’t want to wait 30 days,” the acting executive director pointed out.

She said as long as they know several vendors that are willing to put into the proposal, they can solicit straight from them.

Terlaje said maybe by tomorrow they will start solicitation.

For Saipan, she said they also have an emergency because they lost 10 megawatts as Engine No. 6 in Power Plant 1 went down.

She said they asked the board for an emergency procurement to repair that engine right away and also to purchase a 6-megawatt engine under emergency procurement so it can be faster.

Terlaje said even if they repair Engine No. 6, they still need a new engine as the contract with Aggreko (power supplier) is expiring soon.

“So, we want to make sure that we have capacity after Aggreko expires,” she said.

Terlaje said the board approved their request because it’s an emergency.

She said the emergency is that this is a detrimental to public health and welfare because they don’t have much power supply reserve.

“So that’s why we need to repair right away and buy an engine because the repair might not last long,” Terlaje said.

On funding, the board approved to use some reserve funding until CUC gets their reimbursement for some of the typhoon work that they did.

She said repair work for Engine No. 6 is going take about 3-4 months, while the purchase of a new engine can take anywhere from 6-18 months.

Terlaje said Palacios is very supportive as he even suggested some options on how to help the situation of the power generation for all three islands.

She said as the chief executive of the CNMI, Palacios has access to friends in Washington, D.C. and lobbied for assistance to bring the islands’ power generation back to good condition so they can gear more further into renewable energy.

CUC board chair Janice A. Tenorio, in an interview, said one of the reasons why they invited Palacios was to really keep him up to date with the status of the power plants on Saipan and Rota.

She said as governor, Palacios must be made aware of what’s going on with power plants as it does affect the entire community, the agencies, airports, and hospital on Rota, Saipan, and Tinian.

“We’re just updating him. We went on to an executive session,” said Tenorio, adding that they asked Palacios to join because it was a discussion that he should be aware.

She said the governor is very supportive and mentioned that CUC should be applying for grants because he was informed there’s a lot of grants up there that can probably assist CUC operation in regards to funding water, wastewater, and the energy side.

Last Oct. 4, the board unanimously authorized CUC management to do an emergency procurement for a minimum of 2 megawatts of temporary power on Rota.