HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — It appears that Guam is done with the load-shedding blues, at least for now. All generator units returned to service Saturday and the Guam Power Authority now has enough capacity to service the island, according to the utility.
But as evidenced last week, emergencies happen and the status of the island’s generation capacity can change quickly.
One of the island’s main generators, Cabras 2, went offline July 28 due to a boiler leak, leaving the unit offline for an entire week.
Another major generator, Piti 9, was online early last week but at limited capacity. These issues arose in addition to the loss of the Yigo combustion turbine, which will be down a few months for repairs.
With limited capacity available, GPA cautioned the public of potential rotating outages from Wednesday through Sunday. The outage schedule didn’t always need to be implemented, but the island did experience several days of load shedding and outages, with significant load shedding taking place Monday after additional units went down briefly.
Piti 9 returned to full capacity Thursday. GPA managed to avoid load shedding that day, but the utility did shed load Friday afternoon, as Cabras 2 remained offline and there wasn’t enough capacity to meet the island’s peak demand. Then, around 9 p.m. Friday, Piti 9 went down again for emergency repairs and load shedding occurred once more.
Cabras 2 finally came back to service around 6 a.m. Saturday, while Piti 9 was online by 3:14 p.m., according to GPA. No load shedding occurred for the remainder of the weekend.
“As of now, there is no load-shedding schedule because no units are down,” the utility told The Guam Daily Post. “All units returned to service as of Saturday. GPA has enough generation capacity at this time.”
GPA General Manager John Benavente has said that Guam will remain in a “critical period” until the new 198-megawatt power plant in Ukudu is completed.
The plant’s completion was delayed due to damage caused by Typhoon Mawar, and it may not come online until the end of 2025 – more than a year and a half after its original commissioning target date of April 2024.
Benavente said he anticipates that consumer demand for power will grow between 2024 and 2025, and so the utility is looking for ways to boost or augment its current generation capacity. That may include asking large power consumers to participate in an interruptible load program, where those consumers would use their own generators during peak hours at night.
GPA also is looking at possibly bringing in temporary power generation for a three-year period.
Benavente said he anticipates providing definitive recommendations for effectively increasing capacity in time for the August meeting of the Consolidated Commission on Utilities, the governing board for the power and water utilities.
A high voltage warning sign hangs on the gate to a Guam Power Authority power substation in Hagåtña, shown Aug. 2, 2023.
