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‘CUC losing 25 percent of power’
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Posted on May 14 2005
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is losing 25 percent of its generated power, translating to nearly $1 million in revenue loss a month, according to CUC officials and consultant Dennis Swann of Harris Group in a meeting with legislators Friday.
Swann cited that in 2004, CUC’s power plant 1 production reached 360,000 mwh while Power plant 4 produced 110,000 mwh. Total sales to customers during the year totaled 364,000 mwh only.
Swann said the loss of power happens anywhere, but he said that CUC’s loss rate is 50 percent higher than the norm.
Responding to a question from Sen. Joseph Mendiola, Swann said that the “normal” rate of loss is about 13 percent.
The loss may be caused by various problems in transmission or distribution system or on the consumers’ side. These may also include illegal tapping and unmetered government offices.
Swann said that power use can be closely monitored and the loss minimized if all costumers use meters.
The trend, according to Swann, is that if power is metered, the load or the customers’ use go down.
Mendiola noted during the meeting that, if CUC is losing such a huge amount of electricity, then addressing this problem should be prioritized over the planned privatization.
“Even if we privatize and bring up the efficiency level, it would be useless if we continue to lose 25 percent of it. We should fix it before we do the privatization,” said the senator.
But Swann said the issue on losses is separate from privatization issue. He reiterated that his work focuses only on power generation aspect, not transmission and distribution.
CUC has four power plants on Saipan, including its main plant—power plant I and its back up plant, power plant II—located in Lower Base.
PPI has eight engines—four old engines that were installed in 1979 and four newer units that were installed in 1989 and 1990. Other smaller power plants are located in Isley Field and in Puerto Rico. CUC only relies on PP-1 and the Puerto Rico plant.
