Chamber: Revisit Leidos report recommendations

The Saipan Chamber of Commerce wants the government to revisit the recommendations in a report done by Leidos Engineering LLC last year where they worked as a consultant with the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. in choosing a feasible, cost-effective, and reliable power generation resources.

Leidos is involved in power grid engineering, energy management and efficiency, smart grid, utility planning and consulting, utility security, energy asset advisory, critical infrastructure systems, system integration and controls, and environmental sciences. It is a Fortune 500 company based in Reston, Virginia that earned $5.09 billion in revenues last year.

Part of Leidos’ recommendations for CUC that was submitted to the board was using solar generation, with or without storage, with the option for site control at specific feeders; solar generation with 10-megawatt max capacity; diesel engines that burn heavy fuel oil; diesel engines that burn light fuel at 30 megawatt max capacity; and extending CUC’s assets to new diesel engines burning light fuel.

SCC secretary Alex Sablan said Leidos has done numerous reports and projects similar to this, not only in the U.S. but also in other parts of the world. “They’ve done…this thing thousands of times and we felt that it was going to be the most impartial process in achieving our ultimate goal of getting consistent power. If not cheaper, at least it is consistent, reliable, and clean power.”

“We would like the administration to pursue the Leidos report. The Leidos process was an [Office of the Insular Affairs]-funded project through a $1-million grant that was supposed to be impartial. They are the biggest consultant in the world, in the U.S. and this…is the way that would move us forward,” added Sablan.

“The process was paid for, that’s the other thing. [Leidos] is the biggest firm in the world that does exactly these kinds of recommendation. And we felt that we are getting the best from these experts in the recommendation that was ultimately going to be passed down through this process.”

He said the CUC board might have made a mistake in scrapping the proposals made by Leidos. “The board scrapped it, not the administration. We thought that was the incorrect process when they [board] scrapped it. We believe that Leidos should be reinstituted to determine where we needed to go with power generation, water, wastewater, and all our utility needs.”

Sablan said Leidos collected a lot of information wherein they understood how to handle things, especially with all the development that is taking place on Saipan. “If privatization even makes sense at this stage, [Leidos] took in so much information and did so many interviews. They understand how to handle this process.”

Sablan said Leidos was also going to do the request for proposal for whatever was chosen by the board in power generation. “They are going to be the impartial group that was going to make this determination about what the RFP is going to be. They were going to vet it and they are going to make sure that there were not going to be any complications.”

“That there was no avenue for protest, because that what’s also impacted in these bids in the past is the fact that maybe we didn’t follow procurement rules and we didn’t follow the particular process.”

He added that Leidos was supposed to also make recommendations regarding water and wastewater systems. “We were going to get recommendations for that as well, water and wastewater. We believe that Leidos is the process to go to.”

SCC, last month, has recommended to Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and Lt. Gov. Victor B. Hocog privatizing CUC as part of an eight-point Economic Development Roadmap. The report is suggesting that CUC should be privatized where it would give the chance to future developers to build larger complexes and install their own power production.