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Fletcher welcomes BSI’s addition to the grid
Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Alan Fletcher welcomes Best Sunshine’s International, Ltd.’s 9-megawatt addition to the power grid, calling this the kind of commitment the struggling utility needs to help lower power costs.
According to Fletcher, CUC has lost half of their sales in kilowatt-hours over the last 10 years, leaving a smaller lower base to pay to maintain the same system that accommodated a base twice the size.
Best Sunshine’s 14-story Grand Mariana Casino and Hotel Resort in Garapan project an anticipated demand of 9 megawatts. The hotel is planning back-up power generation but is expected to hook up with CUC for their main power demand.
“I think that’s wonderful,” Fletcher said in a recent interview. “This is a commitment we need from all new development coming on the island—because it’s not just about their businesses—it’s about the whole community, and we all know if we have these extra loads, we can build up our kilowatt hour sales. It’s going to lower the price for everybody on that base rate,” he said.
“Remember, we lost half of our sales in kilowatt hours in the last 10 years. We used to be twice as much sales—and it would be more efficient of a system—but we still have all this system to maintain so we are spreading that pool of fixed costs out over a smaller kilowatt sales basis. So the more sales—it’s going to be help.”
Hopefully, Fletcher said, the CNMI is over that “rough spot,” and “we are going to be expanding the economy moving forward.”
On top of Best Sunshine, new hotel development on island includes, among others, Honest Profit International’s “Saipan Resort Hotel” in San Antonio and Saipan International Real Estate Development Corp.’s “Ocean Vista Resort” in Capital Hill.
