{"id":30375,"date":"2014-03-20T17:52:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T09:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tribune.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=30375"},"modified":"2014-03-20T17:52:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T09:52:00","slug":"hanmi-says-proposed-standby-charge-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/hanmi-says-proposed-standby-charge-high\/","title":{"rendered":"HANMI says proposed standby charge \u2018too high\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hotel Association in the NMI president Nick Nishikawa yesterday labeled as \u201cquite too high\u201d the $20 per kW\/monthly standby charge proposed by the utilities corporation\u2014an amount he claimed is unreasonable and inconsiderate to the conditions of the hotel industry.<\/span>
\nWith the tourism business just slowly picking up, the Hyatt Regency Saipan general manager is convinced that once the proposed charge takes effect, HANMI member hotels will not be the only ones that will suffer but their employees and families as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite too high ($20 per kW\/monthly) and the economy is still unstable. By imposing this charge, it will be very difficult for us to continue to survive. All we\u2019re asking is: give us some time because hotels are just slowly recovering from losses (in the past years),\u201d Nishikawa told Saipan Tribune after yesterday\u2019s public hearing.<\/p>\n

When asked what amount HANMI may be comfortable in paying as standby charge, the president admitted that it would require a thorough review before a final number is given.<\/p>\n

Nishikawa disclosed that hotels\u2014for many years\u2014have witnessed the insufficient capacity of the Commonwealth Utilities Co. to satisfy the power needs on island. This ultimately, he said, is the primary reason why hotels have started investing in its own power generators, fuel, and staff dedicated to it.<\/p>\n

Unlike other establishments, he said hotels need to have uninterrupted power supply 365 days, 24-hour service for their guests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we didn\u2019t do this, our guests and potential guests may have long been gone. As they pay, we ensure that we provide the best service to them,\u201d said Nishikawa, who claimed that the utility rate is among the biggest expense of every hotel on the island.<\/p>\n

Under the CUC proposal, large commercial customers, to avoid paying for the proposed standby charge, have only two choices to make either to hook up 100 percent to CUC or totally get out of the CUC grid. The corporation, however, claimed that once a customer decides to physically disconnect from the grid, CUC will not at all include the hotel\u2019s load requirement in its planning.<\/p>\n

For Nishikawa, there are other ways on how CUC can meet its target of getting all large customers to its grid. He said transfer to the grid can be done gradually perhaps 20 percent in the first two years, 40 percent in three years, until hotels hook up to CUC completely.<\/p>\n

At Hyatt, Nishikawa said if $20 per kW\/monthly standby charge will be enforced, the cost will be more than double to the hotel. Hyatt has 260 personnel whose families, he said, might be affected if the hotel decides to reduce its workforce to minimize operational expenses.<\/p>\n

He said the ripple effect might be larger than what is anticipated.<\/p>\n

When asked if hotel members of the organization are capable of completely disconnecting from the CUC grid at this time, Nishikawa responded in the negative.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome hotels may afford it, but it would be very difficult,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nishikawa admitted that CUC, prior to the filing of the standby charge proposal, had reached out to these large commercial customers. But Nishikawa said, the initial approach is basically enticing the hotels to completely hook up to the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen suddenly, we came to know about this standby charge. I hope CPUC will consider our concerns. Hotels need time to recover\u2026and obviously this won\u2019t help us to recover,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hotel Association in the NMI president Nick Nishikawa yesterday labeled as \u201cquite too high\u201d the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,49,257,50],"class_list":["post-30375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-business-3","tag-cuc","tag-nmi","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30375","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\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}