GIFF JOHNSON
Three rental generators have stabilized Ebeye Island’s power situation as the island waits for four new generators to be installed over the next several months.
Two new generators arrived last month and their installation is waiting on the arrival of two new alternators.
In the meantime, two additional complete generator sets — including engines and alternators — are expected to arrive Ebeye by late December. KAJUR, Ebeye’s power company, intends to install these two generator sets (“gensets”) first, said MEC General Manager Jack Chong Gum this week. “Our hope is to have the gensets operational by mid-January, 2020, after which KAJUR will start plans to return one or two of the three rental generators.”
The last rental unit will be returned once the two new engines that arrived in October are installed and commissioned. All together, KAJUR will have four new generators operating once the installation of these engines is complete.
Chong Gum explained the delay in getting the first two generators installed. Although the first two generators arrived Ebeye in mid-October, the y cannot be installed until their new alternators arrive Ebeye, which is anticipated to be around mid-January 2020, said Chong Gum. He pointed out that new alternators were not part of the original purchase contract.
But “after Cummins (representatives) visited Ebeye after contract was signed, they recommended to KAJUR not to use the old alternators with the new engines,” said Chong Gum. “So we requested the World Bank to approve a change order for the purchase of two new alternators, which they did. It took a while for the change order for the new alternators to be executed; hence their ‘late’ arrival.”
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