HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The island is once again experiencing load shedding as two base load units – the main generators that service Guam – went offline last week.
The Guam Power Authority announced Friday that Cabras 2 went offline for emergency repairs, necessitating a notice for potential load shedding and one-hour rotating outages, as one of Guam’s larger combustion turbine generators, Yigo CT, remains offline for repairs.
Then, on Saturday afternoon, another base load unit, Cabras 1, underwent an emergency outage from a loss of instrumentation controls, leading to load shedding over the weekend.
GPA noticed the public Sunday of potential outages lasting up to early Wednesday morning and has released schedules for potential one-hour rotating outages starting at 4 p.m. and lasting up to 4 a.m.
The Sunday release also stated that Cabras 1 was expected back online Monday, while Cabras 2 is expected back sometime this week.
The Guam Daily Post requested a status update on Cabras 1 and Cabras 2 on Monday, but hadn’t received a response as of press time.
There was an outage Monday morning in Tamuning, but GPA General Manager John Benavente said it was an emergency outage for line repairs to a feeder serving about 500 customers and was not related to load shedding.
Regardless, Benavente has said Guam will remain in a vulnerable position until the new power plant at Ukudu is brought online. Unfortunately, that project may be delayed to the end of 2025 due to damage to storage tanks caused by Typhoon Mawar.
CCU meeting
GPA is seeking to increase or augment Guam’s generation capacity in the meantime. The utility is to meet with the Consolidated Commission on Utilities Tuesday for a work session, which includes on the agenda discussion on grid recommendations as a result of Mawar and the generation capacity shortfall issue.
One initiative to help with capacity may be to bring in temporary power for a three-year period.
While discussion is slated Tuesday, it’s unclear when GPA will make recommendations to the CCU on which initiatives to pursue for improving the island’s capacity. That question was also pending a response from GPA as of press time.
Yigo CT, which was operational before the typhoon, may take some months to come back to service.
Cabras 1 and 2 are both decades old, with their age reflected in the occasional outages they experience.
Cabras 2, specifically, went offline in late July due to a boiler leak, which left the unit unavailable for a week and contributed to instances of load shedding at that time.
Both units are scheduled for decommissioning after the new power plant comes online.
The Cabras Power Plant in Piti is shown Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.