HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Damage to storage tanks at the new Ukudu power plant in Dededo may significantly delay completion of the project.
John Benavente, general manager of the Guam Power Authority, said he heard the project may be delayed up to a year, due to having to reorder materials and other requirements.
Benavente on Tuesday told members of the Consolidated Commission on Utilities that he didn’t have an official update to the schedule and that he would provide a report later.
“The tanks that are there, the beautiful tanks that were going up – two storage tanks for the fuel and two for the treatment plant – they all buckled,” Benavente said Tuesday. “I think the other machines are fine, which is more critical, but the tanks have to be reconstructed, most likely. You know, with these tanks, once completed you have to fill it with water. Otherwise, it will buckle on you.”
A couple of tanks – or what’s left of them – can be seen clearly from the roadside driving past the Ukudu power plant site, as much of the surrounding vegetation was blown away by Typhoon Mawar. The tanks folded in on themselves and didn’t have a top. There also appeared to be pieces of the storage tanks strewn across the site.
It’s unclear how any delay on the Ukudu project might affect GPA’s consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The power utility had been noncompliant with federal emissions regulations for years and entered into the consent decree to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines.
The Ukudu power plant is a key project in the decree and had been scheduled for commissioning by April 2024. The plant is owned by Guam Ukudu Power LLC, the local subsidiary of the Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea East-West Power consortium.
GPA is under a 25-year energy conversion agreement with the consortium, in which the utility will purchase energy from the plant during the length of the contract term. Afterward, ownership of the plant converts to GPA.
Benavente said Tuesday he thought the island’s power infrastructure otherwise stood up well considering the magnitude of Mawar.
According to his report Tuesday, there is minimal damage at the solar facility at Sasayan Valley in Mangilao, owned by KEPCO Mangilao Solar LLC; and at the solar farm in Dandan, Talo’fo’fo’, operated by GlidePath Marianas Operations Inc.
Benavente said the solar facilities won’t be started back up for about a week because the island power system needs to be stabilized, and because GPA needs to get battery energy storage systems up and running.
Storage tanks are seen damaged Wednesday, May 31, 2023, at the Ukudu Power Plant site in Dededo.
