HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Island residents were inconvenienced by several power outages on Friday night which, according to the the Guam Power Authority, were due to an increasingly unstable power grid.
The instability of the power grid is due to compounded challenges with power generation despite GPA personnel working around the clock on the decades old power plant to address the situation.
• Piti 8 (baseload unit): Faced a cooling water leak last night, requiring emergency repair which was completed at 2:40 a.m. today (Saturday)
• Cabras 2 (steam baseload unit): Experienced a boiler tube leak Thursday night and is offline for repairs which is expected to take a few days.
• Piti 7: Currently offline for preventive maintenance, with efforts underway to expedite its return to service sooner than scheduled.
While GPA has done its best to advise ratepayers about upcoming load shedding, the schedule provided was made with the scenario of only two base load units being offline in mind, not three.
“Last night (Friday), the 2 baseload units and 1 non-baseload unit were offline which caused some circuits to experience outages beyond the initially planned 1-hour time frame or earlier than scheduled. As power demand decreased throughout the night, and as Piti 8 was brought back online, outages were concluded,” GPA said in a release.
This resulted in residents in several villages across the island experiencing three to four outages.
Understanding the inconvenience of the power outages, GPA assured the community that they are making both short term and long term fixes to “ensure a more resilient supply for the future.”
• Piti 7 maintenance: Preventative maintenance work on Piti 7 is expected to yield an additional 9 MW by next week.
• Interruptible Load Program (ILP): 16 MW of energy is being contributed by large customers and the U.S. Navy who voluntarily switch to their standby generators during peak demand periods, helping to minimize outages for other customers.
• Conservation campaign: Customers have been actively assisting to reduce peak demand by implementing energy saving plans during peak hours.
• Temporary power: GPA is in the process of bringing in temporary power, with plans submitted to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) this month. Pending approvals and no protests, temporary units could be online within 100 days after contract signing.
• Typhoon damage repair: Repairs to the Yigo CT 20 MW, damaged during Typhoon Mawar, are underway, with completion expected by the end of February.
• Diesel unit repairs: GPA is working with Sen. Parkinson on an expedited procurement process to repair diesel units, potentially increasing output by 25 MW by April.
• Battery storage: Preparing bids for additional battery storage to enhance capacity.
• Federal assistance: GPA is engaging with federal agencies to secure assistance in increasing capacity, with ongoing discussions initiated before Typhoon Mawar.
• Renewable energy initiatives: Responses are currently being reviewed for a large renewable energy bid (Phase IV); Virtual Power Plant will be with the CCU and PUC soon for review/approval.
GPA asked the community to help reduce outages by conserving power from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.
“Refraining from using unnecessary air conditioning units and turning off electric water heaters immediately before and during the peak demand hours can significantly assist in reducing energy demand and required load shedding,” GPA said.
A schedule of potential load shedding outages is available on GPA’s website and social media pages.
The Guam Power Authority combustion turbine Unit No. 7 on Oct. 24, 2023, in Piti.
