ST. THOMAS — A districtwide power outage disrupted service across St. Thomas and St. John on Thursday, with the V.I. Water and Power Authority reporting Friday morning that full power had been restored to all affected feeders at 11 p.m. the previous night.
WAPA initially attributed the outage, which affected all customers in the district, to a loss of generation at the Randolph Harley Power Plant. The utility restored several feeders during the evening but reported additional generation challenges at 9:45 p.m. Its latest alert did not provide further details on the underlying cause of the interruption.
At 7:43 p.m., WAPA reported that efforts to restore stable power were continuing and that no estimated restoration time was available. The authority also said the underlying cause of the interruption had not yet been confirmed.
The utility reported progress at 8:20 p.m., announcing that feeders 5A, 7A, 9C, 12 and 13 had been restored. Personnel continued working to restore stable power to the remaining affected feeders.
But the 9:45 p.m. update reported further difficulties. “While power was restored to some feeders, additional generation challenges have impacted ongoing restoration efforts,” WAPA said. The authority said plant personnel were working to stabilize the system and restore service to affected customers, but provided no estimated completion time.
WAPA is also pursuing additional generating capacity for the district. As the Consortium reported Wednesday, CEO Karl Knight told the Public Services Commission on October 13 that the authority was pursuing two refurbished generators totaling approximately 18 megawatts for the Harley plant, part of a five-unit acquisition. He did not provide a specific delivery or operating date for the refurbished units.
