ST. THOMAS — The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said on Thursday that it had completely restored electric service to St. Thomas and St. John following a district-wide blackout that occurred at around 12:57 a.m. today.
According to a release issued this morning, the outage happened when generating units 23 and 25 failed, causing all feeders to trip off line. The cause of the generators’ failure is being investigated, W.A.P.A. said. In the hours following the unit’s failure, plant personnel brought units 14, 18 and 25 on line to facilitate the restoration process.
W.A.P.A. had commenced restoration work at about 4:20 this morning.
The blackout is the second in less than one month. The first occurred on Sunday, April 10, when an apparent surge entered the Randolph Harley Power Plant, tripped unit 23, two other generating units and caused a service interruption to all feeders in the district, according to a press release the semiautonomous entity issued at the time. W.A.P.A. said it was investigating the cause of the surge, but no results have been released to the public.
Tags: virgin islands water and power authority, wapa
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