Legacy of the 2008 rolling power blackouts on Saipan

By ABE UTU MALAE
Special to the Saipan Tribune

Power generation failures gave rise to the Saipan power crisis of 2008. (See, for instance, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/121201/pinoyabroad/give-us-power-filipinos-experience-dark-ages-in-us-territory-of-saipan). Those failures were a direct result of a chronic lack of maintenance and faulty diagnoses and repairs of generator sets. That unfortunate situation was in turn caused by factors that should not be allowed to ever take hold again.

Saipan’s firm capacity today is 67MW versus a year-to-date peak load of 33.5MW. This firm capacity is expected to increase to 75MW when new radiator sets are installed on four more engines at Power Plant 1.

Options to address the power crisis in 2008

In the first three months of 2007, CUC contracted an overseas consulting firm to draw up plans to rehabilitate engines at Power Plant 1. This plan called for the installation of rental generating sets-before any of the larger medium speed diesels at Power Plant 1 were to be removed from service for major overhauls.

Unfortunately, the power crisis of 2008 occurred before the rehabilitation began.

At the time, there were few good options and time was of the essence. CUC concluded in 2008 that the best option was to rent 15MW of generating sets from overseas. CUC’s primary concern then was the availability and reliability of power to customers; cost was next in importance. Seventeen generating sets guaranteeing 15MW of continuous power was rented for one year and not two as asserted by Mr. F. Prosser in his letter to one of the local newspapers, April 27, 2012

Least expensive option

Unbeknownst to many, the rehabilitation of Power Plant 2 actually began in 2006 and was still ongoing during the power crisis of 2008. Back in March 2006, CUC contracted a private local company to rehabilitate the six EMD engines at Power Plant 2, at a price of $885,000. By 2009, total Power Plant 2 rehabilitation cost increased to $1 million, but output remained below 8.0MW-far short of the 15MW needed during the 2008 power crisis. Thus, utilizing Power Plant 2 to provide 15MW of power during the power crisis was untenable.

The fuel consumption efficiency of the two-stroke EMDs at Power Plant 2 is inherently poor-averaging between 11.0 to 12.0 kWh per gallon, versus 14.1 kWh per gallon for the rental generating sets.

In 12 months of operation, the rentals produced a total of 117,580 MWh while consuming 8,339,007 gallons of diesel fuel. If Power Plant 2 were able to generate the required 15MW of power and produce the 117,580 MWh at its usual fuel efficiency of 11.5kWh per gallon, Power Plant 2 would have consumed 10,224,348 gallons of diesel. This amounts to 1,885,341 gallons more fuel than that consumed by the rentals.

The average cost of fuel during the 12 months of rental generation was $2.1387 per gallon. The additional cost of fuel to CUC, (if Power Plant 2 were used instead of rental units), would have amounted to $4.03 million. That amount would have been passed on directly to customers as part of the fuel cost surcharge or LEAC.

A contract with an off-island company to rehabilitate engines at Power Plant 1 was terminated due to non-performance. Cooling, vibration, and turbocharger problems associated with engines at CUC were eventually brought under control. Engine 8 has been fully rehabilitated and this engine alone produces more power than all of Power Plant 2 and with much higher efficiency, too.

Moving forward

Reliability of power is not as high as it should be because of the numerous faults experienced on the distribution system. During the economic depression extant, affordability is the key consideration and the public is already painfully aware of the high price of utilities. As high as the prices are, they would be even worse if not for the contributions from the federal government in rebuilding the infrastructure and buying equipment. In fiscal year 2011 alone, CUC received $14 million for water, wastewater and power. There is no way the utility could ask for such a large amount of money from the ratepayers of the Commonwealth.

Renewable energy development began in earnest March 2011, when Public Law 17-34 came into existence, allowing CUC to issue request- for- proposals for RE. Currently, there are four renewable energy contracts undergoing extensive legal review. The goal is to have 15 to 20 MW capacity of renewable energy by mid-2013 and for the fuel component of the rates, or the LEAC, to be reduced by at least 15 percent.

Abe Utu Malae is executive director of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.