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‘CUC’s new system avoids unexpected outages’
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Posted on Jun 12 2008
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is implementing a new operational system in order to avoid unexpected outages on Saipan.
CUC executive director Antonio Muna said that under the “safe load operational matrix” system, they have been able to prevent unexpected blackouts.
Muna said when he came aboard CUC, the operational policy was basically to ensure there would be no outages—period.
“But we’re finding out that in doing so, every couple of days after having no outages, we have an outage because something would automatically trip with the engine,” the official told the media.
Muna said they revisited that policy and took the excessive load off the power engines, operating them to a point where they are not pushing the engines as much.
He cited engine no. 2 at Power Plant 1 in Lower Base which used to carry a six-megawatt load but now it is at five megawatts. For engine no. 3 at Power Plant 1, it used to carry a six-megawatt load, but now it’s only at five.
Before this, engines would overheat and just shutdown, said Muna.
“So we are trying to do our best to control that particular event and not have surprise outages anymore,” he said.
The executive director said the current rolling outages schedule that they are implementing affects only certain feeders on the island and not the whole grid.
The current June 6 to 13 load shedding schedule is at two-hour intervals, starting from 8am to 10pm.
On the other hand, Muna said they are also scheduling more of their maintenance work in the evening hours.
“We’re putting in a midnight to 8 o’clock shift so we can shut down the engines during off-peak and implement a maintenance effort in those early morning hours,” he said.
He said from midnight to 8am they have a maintenance shift that will allow them to take a look at the engines in that period.
“From 12 midnight to 8am we are off-peak. We don’t need as much power. People are asleep. So the power demand is something that we can meet even if we take an engine off,” Muna added.
He said by next week CUC may implement a different load shedding schedule.
