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Power won’t come light for Dynasty
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Posted on Apr 15 1999
The Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino is scheduled to begin using island power by the end of this month after it has installed a transformer to hook up with the new 10-megawatt plant, according to the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation.
But the hotel and casino will still be required to pay a security deposit to CUC, estimated at some $400,000 that will cover two months of its average consumption of electricity, before it can be connected to the main system.
Pamela Mathis, CUC’s chief information officer, said the hotel management expects to complete in the next few days installation of the power transformer which will be its main link to the island’s generating facility.
“The security deposit must be paid by every CUC customer before we will allow them to be connected,” she told in an interview.
Based on the calculation of its in-house electrical engineers, the Dynasty is expected to spend about $200,000 for its power needs each month, and thus the deposit will be equivalent to twice of the amount.
Mathis, however, explained that for commercial users, the deposit will be adjusted after a year to determine its consumption level and CUC can either reimburse the excess amount or require additional cash payment based on the new calculation.
Dynasty, which will be charged the CUC commercial rate of 16 cents per kilowatt-hour, is one of the two biggest customers of the government-owned utility firm on the island. The other one is the Voice of America relay station which has opened its facility early this year.
Last February, CUC and town officials inaugurated Tinian’s new power plant when they switched on the first of the four engines that has generating capacity of 2.5 megawatts. The others, with combined capacity of 7.5 megawatts, have gone on line in recent weeks.
Local leaders are hoping to expand the plant to meet the increasing demand into a 30-megawatt facility under the second phase of the project that initially cost about $12 million.
