Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said the Department of Public Lands and its investment arm, the Marianas Public Lands Trust, turned over to the Department of Finance $3.4 million for disbursement to CUC.
Newly signed Public Law 16-7, or the Emergency Power Generation Act of 2008, mandates MPLT to lend CUC the money to pay Pacific Marine Industrial Corp. $1.1 million for its services in running Power Plant 4; $800,000 to Telesource CNMI Inc. which runs CUC’s power plant on Tinian; and $1.5 million for Aggreko.
Aggreko was promised the downpayment before July ended but MPLT’s board of trustees asked for more time before the money was disbursed.
The money was wired to Aggreko through the Bank of Guam yesterday afternoon.
Reyes said Aggreko will ship the generators from Singapore on Aug. 8 and they will arrive here in 30 days.
An additional six days will be needed to install and operate the rented generators, which means that the power situation on Saipan will only begin to stabilize by Sept. 14.
“We should be able to hook it up within six days [from Aug. 8]. By then, we should have 15 more megawatts [of electricity],” said Reyes. “We’re very happy we were able to do it.”
P.L. 16-7 also mandates a residential rebate program valued at $3.4 million for 18 months from July 21, 2008.
CUC has been implementing its load shedding program on Saipan for three straight years now because its main source of electricity on island, Power Plant 1, cannot produce enough electricity.
Under CUC’s contract with Aggreko, the firm will be paid $504,000 a month for the leased generators.
CUC will provide the fuel to run the machines and will buy their produced electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt hour.
Customers who will get electricity from Aggreko’s rented machines will pay the same rate that CUC charges other consumers as the fuel and other operational costs will be added.
Since July 2006, the cost of electricity in the CNMI has increased from 11 to 50 cents per kilowatt hour.
