{"id":372058,"date":"2022-07-08T06:03:06","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T20:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=372058"},"modified":"2022-07-08T06:03:06","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T20:03:06","slug":"cuc-paying-aggreko-over-300k-monthly-for-3-years-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cuc-paying-aggreko-over-300k-monthly-for-3-years-now\/","title":{"rendered":"CUC paying Aggreko over $300K monthly for 3 years now"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
File photo shows U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge David Carter inspecting facilities of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. Power Plant 4 in Puerto Rico in January 2020. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is paying over $300,000 a month to portable generator supplier Aggreko, which has been supplying Saipan with temporary power for almost three years now, according to new CUC deputy executive director Chretien Voerg.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a meeting Wednesday with members of the House of Representatives\u2019 Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications Committee, Voerg said they still have Aggreko helping them with their long-term plan of replacing power engine units with new permanent units.
\n\u201cWe do have a new engine on order and it\u2019s in process of being delivered. As of right now, the scheduled delivery [for that unit] is this summer,\u201d Voerg said.<\/p>\n

PUTC chair Rep. Richard T. Lizama (D-Saipan) said he called the meeting because of concerns about the high utility bills that CUC consumers have been paying. Lizama said the meeting was intended to ferret out solutions to help CUC\u2019s consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of us have been getting a lot of calls in regards to fuel costs and power. I myself came up with a $900 utility bill,\u201d Lizama said.
\nThe lawmaker concedes it is an old issue and he and the committee want to hear from CUC about possible solutions to resolve this issue.<\/p>\n

Voerg, who has been with CUC for only two months, appeared with a team before the PUTC Committee since CUC executive director Gary P. Camacho is off-island.<\/p>\n

With respect to the new power engine that\u2019s coming, Voerg said there will be installation period in order to get that unit up and running. He said the Aggreko contract will remain in place until such time that they have the ability to produce the power that Aggreko is supplying right now.
\nCUC power plant manager Richard Cano said they have five power engine units at Power Plant 1 and three units at Power Plant 2, which are all located in Lower Base.<\/p>\n

At Power Plants 2 and 4, they have three running units but are under maintenance right now, Cano said
\nHe said the power engines are obsolete and require a lot of maintenance, so they need additional units.<\/p>\n

Right now, Saipan\u2019s peak load is between 35 to 40 megawatts.
\n\u201cOur current capacity at Power Plant 1 is 38 [megawatts] and at Power Plant 2 is six, and at Power Plant 4 is 10,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In response to the question of Rep. Vicente Camacho (D-Saipan) as to why the monthly billings of the consumers have tripled, Voerg said electric charges for CUC are based on three principles: One is a financial administrative fee and that is a flat rate. The second part is the base charges, which are used for operation and maintenance of the equipment and the supply lines to produce and supply power to individual homes and businesses in the CNMI. The third component is the Fuel Adjustment Charge, which is the direct payment to CUC\u2019s fuel supplier.<\/p>\n

Voerg said that CUC\u2019s base rates for providing and producing electricity outside of fuel has not changed since 2014. \u201cWhat changes on the monthly basis is the cost of the fuel. CUC\u2019s electricity is generated by diesel-driven generators,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

Voerg said that, as fuel prices increase, those fuel price increases are passed along to the customers.<\/p>\n

He said the formula for calculating that increase was established by the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission.
\n\u201cSo that is outside of CUC\u2019s control as well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is paying over $300,000 a month to portable generator supplier Aggreko,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":372059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-372058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-cuc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372058","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}