CUC junks green energy plan

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has canceled efforts to obtain renewable energy sources for the CNMI.

Manny B. Sablan, procurement and supply manager at CUC, said yesterday that the utility withdrew the “request for proposals” for the renewable power project in light of flaws found by the Office of the Public Auditor in the procurement process.

OPA has said that while there was nothing improper about CUC’s choice of procurement process, the criteria set forth in the RFP were not specific enough to ensure a fair selection.

Sablan said that CUC management has yet to decide whether to resume the project anytime soon. “Right now, there is no plan to reissue the RFP,” he said.

The administration has touted the alternative energy project as a step toward reducing CUC’s dependence on fossil fuel and helping end the Commonwealth’s power woes.

The project also would have helped CUC comply with the law, which requires green energy to constitute at least 10 percent of the total energy produced by CUC by the end of 2008. Under the same law, CUC must double its alternative energy generation every two years until it reaches 80 percent in 2014.

But as with CUC’s previous effort to privatize its power system, the green energy project failed because of an irregular procurement process.

In July 2008, OPA told CUC to review and modify the RFP to comply with CUC’s procurement regulations. According to OPA, CUC violated procurement regulations by merely listing factors that will be evaluated in the RFP, without stating how they weigh against each other. “Merely listing factors that will be evaluated in an RFP with no statement of their relative importance is typically a questionable technique for disclosing the relative importance of the factors,” OPA said.

The order came after Telesource CNMI Inc., as a prospective proposer, questioned the RFP.

Proposals from six different companies on island and elsewhere around the globe were rejected as a result of CUC’s decision. The companies that submitted proposals were New Seoul Corp. and Commonwealth Industrial Supply Co. Inc., both located on Saipan; OCCEES Ocean Engineering & Energy Systems in Hawaii; Leminiscate Investment LLC in Florida; United Systems Engineering Co. Ltd. in Taiwan; and Lucid Energy Technologies LLC in Indiana.