WAPA Ends Rotating Outages in St. Thomas-St. John District After Unit 27 Repairs

The V.I. Water and Power Authority said Monday that rotating power outages in the St. Thomas-St. John district have ended for now after repairs to Unit 27 at the Randolph Harley Power Plant raised available generation, a notable improvement days after WAPA warned that the district remained vulnerable to load shedding until more capacity returned to the system.

During a June 25 update to WAPA’s governing board, Executive Director Karl Knight said ongoing rotations were being driven by a generation shortfall, with Units 15 and 23 offline, Unit 27 operating below capacity, and two Wartsila engines also offline. Chief Operating Officer Lemuel Lavinier estimated at the time that WAPA was short by 4 megawatts during midday peak hours and 8 megawatts during the evening peak.

Mr. Knight said then that WAPA was “not predicting rotations, we are basically saying that this is a possibility” while the district remained exposed to equipment failures. He also described the situation as “touch and go” until additional generation returned, and said, “It is still a precarious situation.”

By Monday, however, WAPA said repairs to Unit 27 had allowed the utility to end the rotations that had affected the St. Thomas-St. John district.

WAPA’s Director of Corporate Communications Shanell Spencer joined the Government House press briefing by video link and thanked customers for enduring the recent intermittent service.