Engine repairs, mechanical problem trigger more outages

Ongoing repairs on one power engine and a mechanical problem on another at Power Plant 1 in Lower Base triggered more outages on Saipan Wednesday and Thursday, on top of the regular 14-hour rotating outages.

“To no surprise, it’s the condition of the engines. [The blackouts] were almost islandwide because two engines went down,” Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Antonio Muna told the Saipan Tribune yesterday.

“We lost 10 megawatts of power at Power Plant 1. And we’re only producing 20 megawatts, so essentially that’s half of the power production,” Muna said.

When such a power shortage occurs, no power supply could be siphoned from elsewhere and all the feeders must be dropped, he said.

CUC acting spokesperson Gary P. Camacho said that Wednesday’s load shedding schedule was expanded throughout the night due to ongoing repairs on engine No. 8 and mechanical problems with engine No. 3.

Camacho said the load shedding expansion, which included multiple feeder grids, occurred between 10pm Wednesday and 4am Thursday.

“Multiple feeders were required to be taken offline due to insufficient power generation and to prevent the overloading of the other operational units and avert the possibility of an islandwide power outage,” he said.

Camacho said that engine No. 3 was repaired and was back online at 3:30am Thursday. However, repairs on engine No. 8 won’t be completed until late Thursday evening.

Therefore, Camacho said, yesterday’s load shedding schedule should be revised due to lack of power production until repairs are finalized.

Water and wastewater services will also be affected in the earlier affected areas as a result of the power outages.

With respect to the CUC crew who worked at the Power Plant operational room Wednesday night, Muna said those people really tried their best to prevent an islandwide blackout. He said the CUC crew worked through Wednesday night at the plant’s operational room to stave off an islandwide blackout.

“The bottom line is, this is no surprise. This is what it is. This is what we should we expect if we don’t get anything in between,” Muna said.

He added that people can expect more outages if CUC and the government continue to delay taking action—either in the form of acquiring the Aggreko International contract or fixing power engines 5 and 7.

Under yesterday’s revised load shedding schedule, the first rotating outage was from 8am to 10am in Koblerville, As Gonno, San Antonio and Afetnas.

From 10am to 12pm, the affected areas were portions of As Terlaje and portions of Fina Sisu, Kannat Tabla, Botanical Garden, San Vicente, Dandan, Airport Road, Isley Field and Lower Dandan.

From 11am to 12pm, the outage affected the area from the Fishing Base to the San Jose intersection.

The afternoon outage began at 12pm and extended to 2pm in portions of Capital Hill, As Teo, Kagman and portions of Papago.

From 2pm to 4pm, portions of Garapan Upper Navy Hill and Annaks Condominiums lost power.

The 4pm to 6pm outage was set in the Lower Base industrial area, and extended north to Tanapag, Achugao, San Roque, As Matuis and Marpi.

From 6pm to 8pm, power was lost in Susupe and from the Mount Carmel area south to portions of Chalan Kanoa and Chalan Kiya.

The final 8pm to 10pm outage occurred in Koblerville, As Gonno, San Antonio and Afetnas.

Camacho said CUC would make all efforts to stick to the schedule, but that emergency schedule changes may occur.