Limited Power Rotation In Effect On St. Thomas Following Problems At Harley Power Plant, WAPA Says (Update)

Update: April 20, 5:38 a.m. — WAPA now says that service was fully restored to all affected customers at 9:31 p.m. on Wednesday, as the demand for power dropped off. The limited rotating schedule of service interruptions was also suspended at that time, said the semiautonomous entity.

All large commercial customers who had previously switched to their standby power to allow WAPA to better manage its limited generation capacity and stabilize the power plant were returned to the grid by 10:30 pm.

Repair work continued on Unit 18 late Wednesday night. The 20-megawatt generator tripped off line earlier today and has been unavailable since.

Units 14, 15 and 25 are presently on line.

Original Story: ST. THOMAS — The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said late Wednesday that it has been experiencing challenges with two of its generating units — Units 15 and 18, located at the Harley Power Plant here. The units, a pair of 20-megawatt generators, have tripped off line on a few occasions today causing service interruptions to feeders across the islands of St. Thomas and St. John.

WAPA says plant personnel are working to troubleshoot the issues associated with the malfunctioning of the units in order to stabilize the generation capacity of the power plant. During each service interruption, all efforts are made to restore service to the affected customers as safely and as quickly as possible.

The ongoing challenges with the units translate into a lack of generation capacity to meeting the demand for electrical service by WAPA’s customers. As such, a limited power rotation schedule is in effect which is being assessed on an hour by hour basis, according to WAPA.

Between 5 and 6 p.m. today, customers on a portion of Feeders 7A and 8B experienced service interruptions. For one hour beginning at 6:10 pm, about 1,000 customers on Feeder 10B primarily the Frenchman’s Bay area will have experienced a service interruption. Service may also be interrupted to a portion of Feeder 9E on St. John affecting 500 customers, if necessary to allow peak demand to be met, according to WAPA.

If necessary, from 7:00 .p.m – 8:00 p.m., customers on a portion of Feeders 9C, 7B and 7E will experience a service interruption.

For the current feeder listing, visit the WAPA website here.