‘CUC owes PMIC $1.5 million’
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. reportedly owes Pacific Marine and Industrial Corp., which operates Power Plant 4, more than $1.5 million.
The utility company has failed to pay PMIC $1,552,462.22 since the July 16-31, 2008, billing period, a source who asked not to be identified said.
The source said PMIC management feels CUC is playing favorites in what power producer they pay, citing the recent payment of $504,000 to Aggreko International for the emergency generators.
During the height of the power crisis, before the emergency generators were turned on, PMIC was providing 14.7 to 15 megawatts to CUC continuously, although they are only contracted to provide 10.1 megawatts. PMIC is still providing up to 15 megawatts during peak load times or when an engine at CUC’s Power Plants 1 or 2 go down. PMIC has yet to produce less than 10.1 megawatts, the source said.
During the island’s recent three-hour outage, Power Plant 4 was able to isolate itself and become the first system to go back online and offer feed power, in order to restore the system, the source said.
PMIC’s contract with CUC was renewed in 2006 for another 10 years.
