CUC awarded $3.4 million to upgrade power grid system
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has been awarded $3.4 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to update its current grid system.
In an interview with CUC executive director Kevin Watson, he shared that CUC recently secured a $3.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for its grid resilience project.
“The Commonwealth Utility Corp. is proud to announce it has secured a $3,396,253 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund a critical project focused on preventing outages and enhancing the resilience of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands’ electrical grid,” he said.
Watson says the project will involve the development of innovative solutions designed to prevent service interruptions and ensure a more stable, reliable electricity supply for CUC customers by bolstering the resilience of the CUC electrical grid.
“The project aims to better prepare the CNMI for the challenges posed by extreme weather and other unforeseen events. [This project] is basically several individual projects. One is we have an outdated SCADA system (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) for the power plant. We are in the process of replacing that and upgrading it. The other is the replacement of wooden poles to concrete poles. That will also be included as part of this project,” he said.
Watson explains that when something happens to the grid, it can cause chain reaction that shuts down the engines ultimately causing an island-wide power outage.
“That’s how this project will help. One of the recent island-wide power outages was when something failed in the grid itself. That will help update that. So, with the SCADA, its more modernized and has features that will help prevent an island-wide power outage. Say if we lose one engine, it will have features that will keep the others going and other feeders online. We are pursuing additional funding and grants to replace our engines,” he said.
Watson said the project is in the development stages.
“Currently in the project development stage, this initiative underscore CUC’s ongoing commitment to proving energy reliability and strengthening the power infrastructure across the commonwealth,” he said.
While CUC was granted $3.4 million for this five-year project, CUC still has to match 1/3 of the grant.
“It’s a long-term project and we’re very fortunate to get this grant,” he said
Kevin Watson
