Rotating outages, engine repairs continue

Saipan continued to experience rotating outages yesterday due to ongoing mechanical repairs on Engine No. 5 at Power Plant 1.

Yesterday’s high temperatures exacerbated the situation, resulting in increased power demand as people turned on their air conditioning units.

“The power plants were not capable of generating the required electrical power to adequately meet the demand, therefore load shedding was required,” said the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. in a statement.

In addition, water services will be affected as the load-shedding schedule continues.

As of press time, there was no word from CUC as to when it expects to finish the repair work on the power engine.

CUC said that, as soon as it is capable of providing sufficient electrical generation to meet the island demand, the rotating outage schedule would no longer be required.

“This assumes that no additional engine problems occur during this emergency repair and the [rotating outage] schedule may be altered by CUC as required,” it said.[B][I] (CUC)[/I][/B]