The decommissioned power engine at the privately operated Power Plant 4 in Puerto Rico has already been replaced with another unit worth $350,000, according to operator Pacific Marine and Industrial Corp.<\/p>\n
PMIC general manager Narciso Paradela told Saipan Tribune yesterday that they want to correct the impression that they have 10 power engines but only nine are operating.<\/p>\n
Paradela said their power engine no. 1 was replaced with unit no. 10, a newly reconditioned secondhand unit with a 2.5 megawatt capacity costing $350,000.<\/p>\n
In other words, he said, they still have nine units because of the replacement and that all nine are operating.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not taken out the engine no. 1 from its foundation because of the cost to dispose of it,\u201d the company official said in an e-mail.<\/p>\n
He pointed out that if there is an economical or practical way for them to rehabilitate unit no. 1, they would have done so long time ago.<\/p>\n
Power Plant 4 has reportedly been saving Saipan\u2019s electric power distribution in the middle of malfunctions and current repairs on power engines at the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s main power plants in Lower Base.<\/p>\n
CUC executive director Antonio Mu\u00f1a had earlier stated that the PMIC-operated Power Plant 4 is a key component in the power distribution system, delivering over 30 percent of the island\u2019s power needs.<\/p>\n
Since Friday, however, only one engine has been operating at Power Plant 1, while Power Plant 4 has been supplying 14.7 megawatts with its nine engines, for a total of 19 megawatts. Saipan needs about 41 megawatts to power the entire island.<\/p>\n
The current power crisis at CUC\u2019s power plants, however, has reportedly caused the operating costs of Power Plant 4 to go beyond its budget for the year.<\/p>\n
PMIC\u2019s contract with CUC is only to provide 10.1 megawatts. But because of the power crisis, Power Plant 4 has been supplying 14.7 megawatts.<\/p>\n
CUC\u2019s contract with PMIC was renewed in 2006 for another 10 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The decommissioned power engine at the privately operated Power Plant 4 in Puerto Rico has already been replaced with another unit worth $350,000, according to operator Pacific Marine and Industrial Corp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}