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Outages Sunday; 40 MWs yesterday
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Posted on Sep 15 2008
Despite the additional 13 megawatts from the emergency Aggreko generators, parts of Saipan were in the dark for about an hour Sunday night.
Engine six in Power Plant 1 was shut down temporarily, which took out feeders 4 and 7, said Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Antonio Muña.
Kiyas 2 and 4 were also down temporarily while engines were transferred and a transformer was brought online.
“We really are trying, as far as brownouts, we are event-free,” Muña said. “Aggreko was to once and for all get rid of brownouts.”
On Friday, the generators produced an additional eight megawatts of power to the island. Five more megawatts were added on Sunday. The final shipment of two generators, producing two megawatts, was expected to arrive yesterday, but it has been delayed until Sept. 21. The generators should be online by Sept. 25, Muña said.
“It was an unavoidable delay by the shipping company,” he added.
If 35 to 40 megawatts of power are produced, the island should be fine, he said.
There were some unexpected large loads that tried to connect to CUC power without proper coordination, he said. However, the community institutions, which have been running on their own power, have access to CUC grids so they are not required to obtain permission.
“Any community that is generally offline, if they need to do maintenance, as long as we schedule, we can accommodate it,” he said.
As Power Plants 1 and 2 begin providing more power, CUC can start looking at adding the loads to the grids, he added.
Also, Muña reiterated that there is an adequate supply of fuel for the engines.
He said there were no concerns about the fuel pipeline.
“There were misconceptions that we were using a simple garden hose,” he said, adding that that is not the case. A tanker will be used by the end of the week, he said.
As of yesterday afternoon, CUC’s Power Plants 1 and 2 were producing 14.5 megawatts, while the privately run Power Plant 4 produced 13 to 14 megawatts and the Aggreko generators provided 13 megawatts, for a total of 40.5 to 41.5 megawatts.
