ST. THOMAS — Residents and businesses across St. Thomas and St. John should expect more widespread rotational power outages as the V.I. Water and Power Authority temporarily removes additional generating units from service to conduct repairs, with some relief anticipated by Monday morning, November 9. However, the utility warns that rotations could continue for another week before potentially ending around November 16.
In a statement issued Saturday, WAPA said the increased interruptions are necessary to allow its personnel and technicians from Wärtsilä to safely repair several generating units at the Randolph Harley Power Plant.
Taking additional equipment offline will temporarily worsen the district's existing generation shortfall, leaving less electricity available to meet customer demand and requiring more extensive power rotations.
WAPA cautioned that outages would become more widespread over the 24-hour period following Saturday's announcement as repairs continue.
The authority expects the frequency of scheduled interruptions to decrease by Monday morning, but that improvement will not necessarily signal the end of rotating outages.
Instead, WAPA said the current timeline provided by Wärtsilä technicians suggests that rotations could potentially conclude seven days later, placing the projected end around Monday, November 16. That date remains dependent on the completion of repairs and the restoration of sufficient generating capacity.
The latest announcement follows a November 5 update in which WAPA disclosed that technicians had been mobilized to repair Wärtsilä 5, one of the generating units experiencing mechanical problems.
During their assessment, technicians identified a fuel leak affecting another engine, Wärtsilä 6.
Because both units are housed in the same engine hall, WAPA said the fuel leak needed to be addressed before technicians could safely proceed with the repairs. At the time, the authority estimated that the work on Wärtsilä 6 would require approximately 48 hours, while repairs to Wärtsilä 5 could take around seven days.
The initial repair effort was scheduled to advance between early Saturday morning and Monday morning, with additional work continuing into the following week.
WAPA explained that the temporary shutdown of additional generating equipment is intended to protect employees and contractors working in the shared engine hall.
The repairs are part of the authority's effort to return unavailable generating units to service and restore enough electricity production to meet the district's demand without repeated interruptions.
The utility acknowledged the strain that ongoing outages have placed on households and businesses, saying it understands the fatigue caused by repeated disruptions.
While the immediate priority remains restoring the affected engines, WAPA is also pursuing additional generation resources to improve the district's reliability.
In its November 5 announcement, the authority said Wärtsilä 7 was not expected to become available for approximately four months. The utility also outlined preparations for two emergency generators on St. John, expected to provide approximately five megawatts of standby capacity once installed and operational.
WAPA has additionally been evaluating a potential power barge as a short-term generation solution, although no deployment timeline has been announced.
For now, residents and businesses are being urged to conserve electricity as much as possible while available generation remains below the amount needed to reliably serve the district.
WAPA said it will continue monitoring generation availability and adjusting its outage rotations as repairs progress.
