Muna: Aggreko deal is competitive

The head honcho of the islands’ utility agency came to the defense of its contract with Aggreko, saying that putting out a new Request for Proposals to rent back-up power generators is unfair to those who participated in the previous biddings.

Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Antonio Muna said yesterday that when the original RFP for temporary power was announced on Sept. 19, 2006, there were 12 interested bidders who picked up bid documents.

The bidders included Telesource, Cummins Power Gen., GE Infra, Energy and the three that actually responded—Leader Universal, Alstom Power Rentals, and Aggreko.

Muna disagreed with the suggestion that CUC will get better results by announcing the RFP again.

MP Magazine publisher Ed Propst who, along with Rep. Tina Sablan, organized the public forum on CUC issues, had suggested, among other things, that the Fitial administration put up a new RFP so the utility agency can find the most affordable back-up generators.

But Muna said that, “what seems to be missing here is fairness to those who participated in the previous bidding process.”

Nonetheless, Muna said, the bottom line is that the CUC-Aggreko contract is “competitive” in comparison to present charges by independent power providers Pacific Marine Industrial Corp. and Telesource.

He said PMIC, which operates Power Plant 4 in Puerto Rico, charges CUC 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour, on top of the fuel and lube oil that CUC provides PMIC.

On the other hand, Telesource, which operates the Tinian power plant, charges CUC a production fee for base load at 3 cents per kWh and 7 cents per kWh in excess of the base load, he said. In addition, Telesource charges CUC a management fee of $54,000 per month and a promissory note payment of $180,000 per month. CUC provides only fuel for Telesource.

The Aggreko contract, Muna said, is competitive at 5 cents per kWh as it will include lube oil, maintenance, and management. CUC will only provide fuel to Aggreko.

Under the Aggreko contract, CUC must make an initial payment of $1.5 million before the company ships the generators. The monthly rate will cost $336,000 or $504,000, depending on whether CUC avails of 10 megawatt or 15 megawatt of electrical power.

Muna said CUC will be announcing an RFP for an independent power producer to sell power to CUC following “the successful model of reliability” of PMIC and Telesource.

“I suggest that all those who have contacted Mr. Propst that they can provide power for [a rate that’s] cheaper than 5 cents per kWh, to include maintenance, capitalization, and management and where CUC will only provide fuel, can make their proposals,” he said.