BMR Energy on Verge of Shutdown Over WAPA's Unpaid $4 Million Debt

On Tuesday, the V.I. Public Services Commission heard from the operator of a solar power company that said their business is on the ropes due to an outstanding $4 million debt owed by the V.I. Water and Power Authority.‌

Bruce Levy, chief executive office of BMR Energy, told commissioners that over the past two and a half years, WAPA has withheld approximately $3.5 million dollars in payments due. Last April, BMR resorted to seeking help from the PSC, asking that a portion of the Levelized Energy Adjustment Clause specifically allocated for solar plants be withheld from WAPA, until the utility company agreed to pay its debts. While WAPA ultimately agreed to pay, the authority have reportedly failed to honor their agreement. “As I mentioned earlier, they have paid us for…three months,” said Mr. Levy. “We have not been paid since February,” he noted.

Telling commissioners that he has heard “all the bad things about WAPA’s financial condition,” Mr. Levy nevertheless emphasized to commissioners that BMR Energy obviously is incurring significant operating expenses by continuing to keep the solar farms running. “We’ve been spending on insurance and debt payment and operating costs for the last three years and we have no money,” he disclosed. “We’ve been subsidizing this from other projects, and we cannot do that indefinitely,” Mr. Levy warned. “In fact, I was keeping the plants on even though I wasn’t getting paid the last three months pending this hearing,” he said, noting that whether in operation or not, debt payments and insurance rates remained the same, as did the majority of personnel costs. “So I am in a very bad situation,” Mr. Levy admitted, saying that the next course of action for the company “is to just stop paying my loan and stop paying for insurance and leaving.”