WAPA Implements Rolling Blackouts In St. Thomas-St. John District As Issues Persist At Harley Power Plant

ST. THOMAS — For much of the day, the St. Thomas-St. John District has either been entirely without power, or parts of the islands would be with electricity while other parts were without.

The authority said Friday night it would implement rolling blackouts as it worked to build back generation capacity at the Randolph Harley Power Plant.

At 12:10 today, WAPA issued an alert revealing that approximately 10,800 customers on St. Thomas Feeders 6A, 7C, 8B, and 9C were experiencing an electrical service interruption as a result of a tripped generating unit at the Randolph Harley Power Plant. The authority said plant personnel were working to rebuild generation capacity so as to restore service to customers. Estimated restoration time was 2 p.m.

At 12:30 p.m., WAPA issued another alert to announce that a major electrical service interruption had affected all customers in the St. Thomas- St. John District, resulting from the loss of all generating capacity at the Randolph Harley Power Plant. 

The outage at noon, according WAPA, initially involved four feeders. However, as additional generation capacity was lost, the service interruption affected more customers. The authority said plant personnel were working to rebuild generation capacity so as to re-energize the power plant, and begin the restoration of service to all customers. 

Then at 3:48 p.m., WAPA issued yet another alert making known that a major electrical service interruption was affecting the St. Thomas-St. John district, with the issue being that a pair of WAPA generating units tripped off line at 3:30 p.m., while WAPA was attempting to restore from an earlier district-wide outage. 

The last alert came in at 8:20 p.m. This time, WAPA said it would be placing customers on a one-hour rotation (rolling blackouts).

“Until those repairs are completed, and there is enough electrical capacity to restore all customers, WAPA will engage a one-hour rotation schedule at 8:30 pm as follows: service will be restored to Feeders 6A, 7A, 7C, and 8A. During the rotation schedule, the following feeders will be off-line: 6B, 7B, 7E, 9C, and 10B. Should the repairs not be completed by 9:30 pm, another hour of rotating outages will be in effect. An update will be provided by 9 p.m.,” the authority said.