St. Thomas-St. John residents faced frustrating rolling blackouts Wednesday, a consequence of ongoing generation issues at the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority. Chief Executive Officer Karl Knight attributed the generation issues to fuel line fractures on Unit 23, which the utility has been operating for the past couple of weeks.
“The unit developed some fractures in the fuel line that we’ve been trying to repair, but the one today we thought was too urgent to continue operations without giving it a proper repair, so we took it down,” Knight said, adding that the authority was working to get it back on line before the peak evening hours Wednesday. “Because we are light on generation capacity, we have had to rotate outages to meet the demand.”
The unit was brought back online around 9 p.m. Wednesday night, with all feeders restored and the remaining rotation schedule canceled.
Knight said that to supplement, WAPA has its three Phase I Wartsila generations operational, but three out of four of the Phase II generators encountered “issues a few weeks back.” Specifically, it looks like a faulty fuel pump, which affected three of the Phase II units, but all four were taken down out “of an abundance of caution” while repairs, which are underway, were executed.
The Phase II units are dual-fuel, operating on propane and diesel, and Wartsila teams are currently on the ground to ensure the issue is not systemic.
“Once they start to execute repairs, we can give a better post mortem, but we are moving post haste to get those repaired,” Knight said, adding that the fully functioning units will make the power generation more stable.
