CUC begins power shedding

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has asked all garment and hotel businesses to run their own generators daily to avert overloading the power plants on Saipan.

This comes soon after CUC began load-shedding Monday, resulting in island-wide power outages that affected schools, traffic lights, and businesses. Yesterday, Mount Carmel School let out its students ahead of schedule because of the outages, while traffic lights from Susupe all the way to Middle Road and Beach Road stopped operations.

According to a CUC official, the utility company has to turn off power supplies at certain areas for a period of time to prevent the tripping off of operating power plants and before the generators reach full capacity.

The power shedding began Monday—Memorial Day—when CUC turned off the power supply to the southern portion of Saipan for two hours. CUC asked garment and hotel operators to turn on their generators to prepare for the outages.

“This came after CUC asked garment and hotel operators to go on line with the utility firm. But seems to be that CUC cannot supply the needed power and electricity for all the businesses,” said the source.

Of the four power plants on Saipan—Power Plant 1 and 2 located in Lower Base, Power Plant 3 in Isley Airfield, and Power Plant 4 in Puerto Rico—only Power Plant 4 has been operating at a maximum capacity of 12.40 megawatts.

Power Plant 1 and 2 are supplying 53 megawatts and 3.4 megawatts respectively, while Power Plant 4 is supplying only 12.40 megawatts to the entire island.

Power Plants 1 and 2 should be supplying 81.2 and 15.0 megawatts, Power Plant 3 should be supplying 4.5 megawatts and Power Plant 4 should be supplying 19.5 megawatts for its daily operation.

Saipan, the biggest and busiest island in the CNMI, need a total of 120.2 megawatts daily but CUC is only supplying 68.80 megawatts of power.

Based on its records, CUC was expecting 68.80 megawatts of power supply in April 2004 but it generated only 68.65 megawatts, leaving barely .2 percent as its reserve.

The demand on the power supply is expected to shoot up this summer when all students would be home and temperature rises.

“There would be more power outages this summer since people would be home and it would be hot during this period. Now that CUC only has a fraction of power reserve, power outages would be more often,” said the official.

The source said that by bringing all hotels and garments off line during peak hours, CUC hope to avert load shedding in residential areas.

However, for the past two days, CUC implemented power outages in certain areas without publicly notifying affected residents and commercial owners ahead of time.

The source explained that one of the reasons why Guam could not get full military investments on their island is due to water concerns. Here on Saipan, business confidence has been dwindling due to concerns on how CUC could supply the needed power demands of businesses.

“How are you going to attract investors when there is no consistent power supply and utilities. That would affect business confidence and would push away prospective investors,” he added.

Yesterday, CUC released a revised urgent public advisory on its emergency load shedding outages, citing mechanical and electrical difficulties as primary reasons. CUC said traffic lights would be affected and urged cooperation and patience from the community residing in affected areas while work is being completed.

Affected by power outages were Lower Base, Garapan, Beach Road, Microl intersection traffic light from 10am to 12pm; Lower Base, Tanapag, Achugao, San Roque, As Matuis, and Marpi between 11am and 1pm; Chalan Kiya, San Vicente, Airport Road, As Perdido, Koblerville, Dandan and parts of Papago at 12pm to 2pm; Chalan Kiya, San Jose, Susupe, and parts of Chalan Kanoa around 2pm to 4pm; Shell station Dandan, As Lito, Finasisu, parts of Chalan Kanoa, Chalan Piao, Shell Koblerville and San Antonio at 4pm to 6pm; Lower Base, Tanapag, Achugao, San Roque, As Matuis, and Marpi between 6pm and 8pm; and Sadog Tasi, Lower Base, Capitol Hill, Wireless, Denni, Agag, Mt. Tapochao, As Teo, and Kagman from 8pm through 10pm.