GUALO RAI Saipan — The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. will hold talks with the management of the Rota Resort & Country Club this month to explore the possibility of having the hotel take over the production of power supply for the island according to Anthony C. Guerrero executive director of the utilities agency.

Guerrero said Rota Resort has offered to help the utilities agency in providing stable power supply to the island by utilizing its generators that according to Guerrero has a capacity of approximately five megawatts.

Guerrero said CUC has not discussed how much it would cost the agency. “We haven’t really discussed those details as we have to do our homework first ” Guerrero said.

Naoki Ikeno told the Journal that their Japan head office initiated the offer with the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. He said the company was exploring the possibility of having the resort help supply power to the island. "We will discuss that in  our future planning " he said. The resort helped provide power to Sinapalo village following Typhoon Chaba which brought down power lines when it hit Rota on Aug. 22 2003. "We assisted the local community " Ikeno said. 

“We are talking to them about either a take over of the power generation or having their engines help supply power. We’re still talking. It’s very preliminary ” Guerrero told the Journal. “There’s a proposal from Rota Resort. We want to see what they have to offer ” he said. He said CUC was still reviewing its options before finalizing a deal with Rota Resort.

According to Guerrero Rota’s power needs range from 1.7 megawatts to 3.5 megawatts during peak hours. He said CUC has been able to meet that demand.

“But we want to make sure that we have enough capacity for the island ” he said. Guerrero said that one of the problems in generating stable power supply for Rota is CUC’s aging engines which limit the capacity to produce more.

“Our engines over there need a lot of work and maintenance ” he said. Guerrero said he was scheduled to be on Rota in the week of Sept. 18 to 22 to personally discuss the matter with Ikeno. MBJ