Muna said the first batch of the Aggreko generators will arrive on Aug. 31 and three more shipments will follow before the machines can be installed and produce 15 megawatts.
“The infrastructure for the rented generators arrived. There are four phases of shipment in transporting them,” he said in an interview yesterday.
The second shipment of the generators will arrive on Saipan on Sept. 6 and one more will come on the 12th —at which time the machines should be up and running and producing up to 14 megawatts.
The final delivery will be accomplished on the 16th of next month.
CUC needs at least 39 megawatts to meet the demand for electricity on Saipan.
Load shedding or rotating blackouts around different villages of the island continues for the nth time this week.
But instead of cutting off power supply for just two hours, some villages are experiencing three or more hours of blackouts.
Muna said that’s because the main source of electricity on Saipan — Power Plant 1, which has eight engines and was originally designed to produce 81 megawatts — currently has just three functional engines.
Power plant 1 will continue to be up and running to augment the need for more electricity on island and its dysfunctional engines can now be repaired one by one once the rented Aggreko generators are fully operational.
“Our focus is to meet the demand for electricity. We are in the process of securing temporary power from Aggreko,” said Muna.
The generators will be leased to CUC for a fixed rate of $504,000 a month or $6 million in one year.
CUC will buy Aggreko’s electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt hour but will provide it will fuel.
Customers will be charged CUC’s current power rates.
Muna said he is optimistic that power supply will normalize by September.
“If we will still have problems, it’s what we called field problems,” he said.
