Gov. Ralph DLG Torres will be meeting with board members of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. next week to get updates on the utilities company\u2019s Integrated Resource Plan.<\/p>\n
According to Torres, the last time he had an update with the CUC board was \u201cabout a month ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that they are going to be making some adjustments. We\u2019ll be meeting them sometime next week,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
When asked if he is giving the board a timeline or pressure in making a decision on the IRP\u2014which was supposed help CUC \u201cchoose feasible, cost-effective, and reliable resources for their power generation and has been in the works since 2014\u2014Torres said it should not be \u201cthis year\u201d but \u201csoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Torres also said he wanted the board to think of the best decision. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to give them the opportunity to do what is best,\u201d Torres said. \u201cThere is a short- and long-term goal. This is very critical. I don\u2019t want to force them to make decisions that are not well thought out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to look into it in detail. Once the decision is made, then we\u2019ll expedite the course of action,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Torres said they are also looking into buying new generators for CUC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to get brand new generators. I want to increase our engines up to 50 megawatt. We\u2019re looking into purchasing generators and we\u2019re seeing what\u2019s available out there,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
Asked where they will get the money for additional generators, Torres said they will look at funding opportunities such as the mitigation program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, loans, bonding, or even the private sector if they can contribute.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur end goal is to provide utilities that are cheaper and more efficient engines,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
He added that new developments coming online that will be hooking up with CUC is also a concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are concerned that\u2019s why it\u2019s a great opportunity for them to build up after Typhoon Soudelor and working together with the private sector,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
Torres also said that he met with CUC acting executive director Gary Camacho to discuss the water status in the CNMI particularly in Saipan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to have a blueprint of where we\u2019re at,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres will be meeting with board members of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[49,2103,1614,6333],"class_list":["post-222857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-cuc","tag-gary-camacho","tag-integrated-resource-plan","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222857","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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}