Saipan assured of no rolling outages

Despite the emergency situation brought on by its many fiscal challenges, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. assures that no power interruptions and outages are expected in the coming days.

Acting CUC executive director Alan Fletcher said yesterday that the utilities company has enough power on standby and is continuously taking steps to reduce operational costs to stretch every dollar.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial recently declared a state of emergency at CUC and the agency has since then been receiving questions about the stability of Saipan’s power supply.

“At this time CUC does not anticipate any power supply interruptions. However, since CUC has no working capital or reserves, it must rely fully on customers making timely payments on bills,” Fletcher said.

To date, CUC has about $21.7 million in collectibles from its customers, including government and private sectors.

Fletcher told Saipan Tribune that current loads are running at around 35 megawatts, with a solid standby and spinning reserve of 3.20MW as of June 1. CUC recorded a peak load of 34.2MW on June 1.

He disclosed that the agency is taking steps to reduce costs for customers by shifting power generation loads from Power Plant 4 to Power Plant 1, where recent investments have increased engine efficiency so less diesel fuel is needed to run those engines.

Also, he said, steps have been taken to reduce vehicle miles driven so that CUC can save on fleet gasoline.

CUC has also been finding different approaches to energy intensive processes such as wastewater treatment to save money. According to Fletcher, this fiscal year alone, CUC reduced its energy consumption by over 15 percent in its water and wastewater divisions by changing its equipment cycles and by repairing over 400 leaks in the water system.

CUC has also been seeing operational improvements. For example, the water and wastewater crews were recently split into two operating groups, each working four- to 10-hour days per week. The staff will be working every day of the week, with the two operating shifts overlapping once per week. This means better vehicle use and reduced overtime and emergency call-outs on weekends.

“While the power plant crews have historically worked 24-hour rotating shifts, we will be looking at operations in power transmission and distribution services to see if efficiencies can be attained similar to water operations. In addition, CUC is looking to cut some unfilled positions that had been slated for hiring,” added Fletcher.