But members of the House Committee on Public Utilities, Communications and Transportation chaired by Rep. Victor B. Hocog, Ind.-Rota, expressed some reservations about the assurance made by CUC Executive Director Antonio Muna and Deputy Director for Electrical System Wallon Young.
Speaker Arnold I. Palacios, R-Saipan, said the power crisis last year was a “nightmare” and should not happen again.
CUC must come up with a plan to decommission its old power engines, he added.
Young said he is confident that before the $6 million contract with Aggreko ends in September, CUC will once again be providing adequate power on Saipan.
Aggreko is currently producing 14 megawatts for CUC.
Muna told reporters that while CUC believes it will no longer need Aggreko before September, the agency will continue observing the performance of engines 3 and 7 of Power Plant 1 before making a final decision regarding the contract.
By March 30, he said the number of engines operating will double, and with engines 3 and 7 online CUC will be able to produce an additional 15 megawatts.
“We are confident that with Wallon on board directing the rehabilitation efforts, those engines will perform well,” Muna said.
Power Plant 1 is expected to increase its production from eight to 23 megawatts, which will bring CUC’s overall load capacity to 41 megawatts by March 31, he said.
On June 30, he added, they are expecting another engine to be operational, bringing the overall CUC capacity to 48 megawatts without Aggreko’s generators.
By Sept. 30, Muna said, engine 5 will be online and Power Plant 1’s production capacity will increase to 34 megawatt, bringing CUC’s total capacity to 54 megawatts.
In his presentation before lawmakers, Wallon said engines 6 and 8 of Power Plant 1 are still operating but are scheduled for overhaul by 2010.
The rehabilitation of engine 7, which started this month, is expected to be completed by September, he said.
The repair of engine 3’s crankshaft is expected to be completed by September, Wallon said.
In June, the two-month rehabilitation of engine 1 will start, while rehabilitation of engine 5 starts in September.
“From the production standpoint we are looking very well by the end of the year,” Muna said. “We are hopeful that the problems we had would be history — something that we cannot repeat again.”
He said the maintenance of engines must be sustained.
When he was hired by CUC on Feb 3, Wallon said he was not ale to see s single engine running.
He said when he was here in 2007, he concluded that the problems with the engines were preventable.
According to Wallon, CUC’s mechanics are good but only they need good leadership.
He also noted that CUC’s power rate “did not support the budget of the power plant.”
