CUC Executive Director Antonio Muna said they received the final advisory from Aggreko at 1:48 p.m.
CUC engineers in the control room then informed Muna that Aggreko had shut down its generators, which cost the CNMI over $500,000 a month for one year, or a total of $6 million.
“The total power production capability for CUC’s generating assets is 55.5 megawatts and the current load is 37 megawatts,” Muna said.
Wallon Young, CUC’s deputy director for power generation, told Variety that Aggreko disconnected its 16 generators yesterday morning.
In the afternoon, the remaining two generators were shut down and by Sept. 10 Aggreko will be physically disconnected from the CUC grid, Young said.
“For the first time, the whole island of Saipan will be supplied by CUC power,” he added.
Young said because of the daily, 10-hour work on the rehabilitation of CUC’s engines, “we are now supplying 100 percent power from CUC.”
Fitial said the maintenance effort at Power Plant 1 will continue to ensure that the crisis and hardship endured by Saipan community last year will no longer happen.
“No power outages, no water outages and no wastewater backups — these are the standards we want to expect from CUC,” he said.
Fitial admitted that they cannot reasonably expect CUC to be perfect but they are expecting the agency to constantly strive to minimize service interruptions.
“This is the goal, and today we recognize that we have made great strides to attain this goal,” he added.
Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr said yesterday’s event marked the full rehabilitation of Saipan’s local power plant capacity, which he described as a “significant accomplishment.”
“This was achieved, in part, by successfully using millions of dollars in federal funds,” he added.
During the ceremony, Muna acknowledged the support of CUC’s mechanic and technicians.
Young said Power Plants 1 and 2 have 55 personnel.
Muna also recognized the core of the management team — power generation manager Amando Santos, managing engineer Venugopal Prabhakara and Young.
He also introduced the “new blood” of CUC: Jonathan Sablan, Prescotte Cabrera, Frank Mitzutama and Bryan Reyes.
Fitial expressed his appreciation to the public and all CUC customers for their patience and understanding during the power crisis.
“CUC was broken. We needed temporary generators. But now we have fixed CUC and we are going to do without these temporary generators from now on. This is progress,” the governor said.
