CUC claims 99.95% reliability in latest results
Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC)
(CNS Business): Grand Cayman’s monopoly provider claimed that it had a near perfect rate of keeping the island connected in the second quarter of this year. Despite a blackout across George Town in April that lasted more than four hours, Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC) said that customers on average experienced less than one outage lasting under an hour. The news comes following a major power cut on 17 July, when the whole of the island lost electricity for almost a full day.
The results for this second quarter and the first half of the year reveal a slight dip in profits for the monopoly power provider, although it has increased its customer base.
Net earnings for the six months ending 30 June were $8.8 million, a decrease of $0.4million compared to earnings of $9.2 million for the same period last year. The firm said this was mainly down to higher depreciation, transmission and distribution as well as temporary generation rental costs. This could have seen an even greater dent in the power company’s profits but higher sales helped offset the increase in operational costs as the power firm’s customers grew by 2%, or 546 new clients.
Reviewing the results for the latest quarter, CEO and President Richard Hew said he was “pleased with the overall results recorded” and the progress that was also being made during this past quarter on the construction of CUC’s new $85 million power house. He said there were positive indications that the firm would have “a strong financial base and a stable and efficient power supply to provide excellent customer service to our current and growing customer base in the summer of 2016 and beyond”.
The new power plant is expected to complete the first generating unit on May 1 next year and the second generating unit and steam turbine will be handed over on 1 June. The firm will than have an additional 39.7 megawatts of diesel power, including a 2.7 MW waste heat recovery steam turbine.
Meanwhile, the Consumer-Owned Renewable Energy Generation (CORE) programme which allows CUC’s consumers to generate energy from their own solar panels and wind-turbines continues to attract participants. During the second quarter 26 customers were connected to CUC’s distribution system. Total capacity under that programme is now estimated at 2,910 kilowatts, the firm revealed.
More details on the second quarter results can be found on CUC’s website
Category: Local Business, Utilities
99.95 Uptime = The following down time;
Daily: 43.2s
Weekly: 5m 2.4s
Monthly: 21m 54.9s
Yearly: 4h 22m 58.5s
Really CUC?
Whoever wrote this report must be tripping or something – because that is certainly not the experience for those that your provide services too – especially those in the more Easterly districts who are accustomed to frequent little blackout blips throughout the year.
FYI: 99.95 is absolute shit when it comes to energy up times. that’s still the difference of 350.4 hours of needless down time to consumers. 99.85% uptime is Incompetence
why did my power in west bay go out then? not for long but it still went out,
Hahahahahaha!
Another great self-assessment of its own reliability by the good people over at CUC…
Did you mean another delusional self-assessment of its own reliability by the good people over at CUC?
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!! Love that headline.
For an expensive, dinosaur based operation CUC is extremely reliable. I bought a whole house generator after Ivan and have not had to use it more than a handful of times in the past 12 years.
But CUC needs to genuinely embrace renewables. The future is clear to see