The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. power grid hit a 26-megawatt peak this week\u2014the highest its been since Typhoon Soudelor, according to CUC officials yesterday, as the public utility continues work on the island\u2019s lateral power lines after restoring power to the main distribution lines on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The daily average peak hovers around 19 to 20 MW.<\/p>\n
The 25.7-MW peak this week was the maximum consumption the grid has seen since Typhoon Soudelor wrecked the power, transmission, and distribution systems in August.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good sign because it shows that CUC has hit 25.7 MW out of a 34-MW peak\u2014the highest number before the typhoon. This means more customers are online and bigger loads are coming on.<\/p>\n
On the repair of lateral lines, acting CUC executive director John Riegel said CUC crews are first going into areas with larger populations like Dandan, Kagman, Garapan, Chalan Kanoa, and other highly populated areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose areas will be first,\u201d Riegel told Saipan Tribune. From there, CUC will move to laterals that are less populous.<\/p>\n
Riegel told CUC board members during a meeting yesterday that they ordered more transformers to \u201caccelerate the speed we can hook up\u201d power lines.<\/p>\n
CUC has recovered 635 damaged transformers. Over a thousand \u201creconditioned\u201d transformers are en route to Saipan.<\/p>\n
Riegel assured board members, when asked, that the transformers are \u201cPCB-free.\u201d He said a first order of transformers would have taken two months before they could get to the island, but CUC found another vendor who could provide reconditioned transformers in two weeks.<\/p>\n
On water, Riegel told Saipan Tribune that the total volume they are producing is about 78 percent of maximum production. Riegel said 71 percent of wells are online and are pumping water.<\/p>\n
Kia\u2019aina visits CUC<\/strong><\/p>\n Esther Kia\u2019aina, the U.S. Department of the Interior\u2019s Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas, met with Riegel yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n Riegel said her biggest questions were how CUC fared during the storm and what plans for mitigation do they have to harden their facility so there would be no repeat of damage.<\/p>\n Kia-aina wanted to \u201cmake sure we are looking at things like that,\u201d said Riegel.<\/p>\n \u201cShe can help direct funding [for recovery and mitigation] and direct us to other sources of funding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. power grid hit a 26-megawatt peak this week\u2014the highest its been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,50,38,6333],"class_list":["post-211941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cuc","tag-power","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211941","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}