Continuing power-plant problems disrupted WAPA’s effort to provide scheduled electricity rotations in the St. Thomas–St. John District Thursday, forcing the utility to withdraw an evening timetable after warning that switching certain feeders could trigger a major districtwide outage. The developments followed a governing board discussion in which officials described equipment failures, a lack of backup capacity and financial constraints affecting the authority’s ability to maintain reliable service.
In a 5:20 p.m. alert on October 22, the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said it could not begin the planned two-hour rotations because certain feeders presented a higher risk of causing a major districtwide outage. WAPA subsequently issued a schedule in an 8:30 p.m. update, but withdrew it at 9:50 p.m. “Unfortunately, we are experiencing additional challenges at the power plant. The rotation schedule previously issued is no longer accurate or in effect,” the authority stated, adding that its teams were working on an updated schedule.
In an 11:15 p.m. notice, WAPA reported that feeders 5A, 7A, 8B, 9B, 7B, 7C and 9E, along with the Brookman Road portion of feeder 9C, had been restored as of 10:45 p.m. Thursday. The notice did not provide a replacement rotation timetable or an estimated time for full district restoration. That dated report did not establish which feeders remained energized Friday morning.
The disruptions prompted the closure of all public schools and Department of Education offices in the St. Thomas–St. John District on Friday, October 23. Government House separately announced that Executive Branch government offices in the district would also close, citing reduced generation capacity at the Randolph Harley Power Plant. Essential government personnel must report as scheduled, while Education officials acknowledged the short notice for families arranging childcare.
During Thursday’s board meeting, members were told that Randolph Harley had been operating without backup capacity since Unit 15 failed earlier this year. Other generation units, including Unit 23 and Wartsila 5, had also been knocked offline and were awaiting repair. CEO Karl Knight said newer generators are highly efficient and designed to optimize fuel consumption, but have proven “not very robust” under continuous operational strain.
WAPA’s older gas turbines present the opposite challenge: they “can handle the swings and the fluctuations” but “burn fuel like it’s going out of style,” Mr. Knight said. “There is a trade-off,” he emphasized, explaining that WAPA’s goal is to “try to right-size those two things” at both Randolph Harley and St. Croix’s Estate Richmond Power Plant.
Mr. Knight also pointed to previous inattention to required maintenance schedules. A chronic lack of preventive and regular maintenance “sets us up for ultimately catastrophic failure,” he said, noting that before its failure this year, Unit 15 “hadn’t been down in like four or five years.”
The utility’s finances remain a constraint on that work. “We need to be in a better financial position,” said Lemuel Lavinier, WAPA’s chief operating officer of electric systems. Mr. Knight said that since beginning his tenure, he had “made sure that we have set aside operating revenues for major maintenance as well as routine maintenance,” but that the authority needed to move from crisis-driven repairs toward more proactive servicing.
Higher fuel prices this year have complicated that effort, Mr. Knight said. Costs moved in the opposite direction from WAPA’s projections, leaving the utility “a little bit short of the resources we thought we would have to do that level of work.”
WAPA is pursuing temporary generators to maintain capacity during the FEMA-funded prudent replacement project at Randolph Harley, while additional generation units for St. John await Coastal Zone Management approval. Repairs to Units 15 and 23 are also ongoing. “The units that we're procuring are ultimately to retire Unit 15, but we still need the old dog to hold on a little bit longer until we get those new units in,” Mr. Knight said.
Discussing Unit 15 repairs, Mr. Knight initially estimated completion in late January or early February, while describing a possible acceleration of four to five weeks that still required further review. Those estimates concern longer-term generation capacity, not a timetable for restoring service to customers affected by Thursday’s outages.
The continuing disruptions have also renewed calls to reconsider how WAPA operates. Following Thursday’s announcement of rotating outages, Senator Kenneth Gittens called for discussions about selling the authority’s generation assets to a qualified private operator while retaining government ownership of the distribution system.
