💧 Water and Power · U.S. Virgin Islands
Two power interruptions hit St. Thomas-St. John district on November 15, 2019
The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said two electrical service interruptions affected customers in the St. Thomas-St. John district on November 15, 2019.
WAPA said the first district-wide interruption occurred at about 2:45 p.m. after a problem with temperature control systems on Unit 23 and another unit tripping offline. The authority said Unit 15, two rental generators identified as Units 26 and 27, and two smaller Wartsila generators were brought online to restore service.
About two hours later, WAPA said Unit 26 tripped because of a fuel system issue and Unit 27 also tripped. Unit 15 remained online, avoiding a complete loss of generation capacity at the Randolph Harley Power Plant, according to the authority.
WAPA said plant personnel restarted Unit 27 and, with the Wartsila propane-fired generators, restored service to all customers at about 6:15 p.m. The authority said personnel were reviewing unit data to determine the cause of the trips that led to the outages.
WAPA also said Unit 23 was expected to return to service later on November 15, 2019, and that Unit 25, which had been undergoing scheduled maintenance, was expected to be available by early November 16, 2019.