Wapa

Power Fully Restored To St. Thomas-St. John District Following Unit Failure At Randolph Harley Power Plant, WAPA Says

ST. THOMAS -- Personnel at WAPA’s Randolph Harley Power Plant worked into the early morning hours of Saturday to restore electrical service to the St. Thomas – St. John district following a failure of Unit 23 and a subsequent cascading effect on nine feeders. The unit fell off line just after 5 p.m. Friday interrupting electrical service, WAPA announced early Saturday.  WAPA Executive Director Julio A. Rhymer, Sr. said Friday night that working with only limited capacity from two other generating units, Units 18 and 25, personnel were forced to engage a limited rotation schedule so as to spread out the available electricity to as many customers as possible. “In light of the limited generation capacity we have from two generators, about 40 megawatts, we will likely not have the resources available to restore all electric service until Unit 23 is back on line. As the night wore on, we saw a decrease in demand for electricity which allowed plant personnel to gradually restore service, fe...