💧 Water and Power · U.S. Virgin Islands
WAPA board approved faster smart-meter rollout, lease consolidation and grid project cost increase
The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said its governing board approved several measures at its Feb. 26, 2026 meeting, including an accelerated electric meter replacement schedule, a cost increase for the Feeder 5A underground electrical project, and a 10-year lease at Four Winds Plaza for consolidated customer-facing operations.
WAPA said the meter replacement project would be accelerated by deploying new meters on St. Thomas and St. Croix at the same time, cutting six months from the overall timeline. Installation on St. John was scheduled to begin by September 2026. The authority said it would add installation crews and expand warehousing, networking infrastructure, vehicles and support resources for the project.
The board also unanimously approved a cost increase for the Feeder 5A underground electrical project. WAPA said the project was part of grid-hardening work.
For customer service operations, the board approved a 10-year lease agreement at Four Winds Plaza. WAPA said the arrangement would reduce projected costs from more than $12 million under current arrangements to about $8.16 million over 10 years, for estimated savings of $3 million to $5 million. The authority also said a change in the construction plan from a two-story to a one-story buildout would lower costs. The first phase of the buildout was expected to be completed by May 30, 2026.
In an operational update, WAPA said expanded in-house vegetation management crews were active on St. Thomas and St. Croix, including work aimed at tree-related outages on St. Thomas' Northside. The authority said engineers had identified corrective measures after a 24-hour outage on St. John that it attributed to coordination issues within advanced automation systems.
WAPA also said it had secured contracts for traveling screens intended to address increasing sargassum impacts on generation facilities, with additional measures planned in a second phase. The authority reported that February 2026 ended with zero vehicle accidents.
The utility said line crews that had assisted restoration work in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa had returned, and that another crew from St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas was scheduled to deploy for a five-week assignment.