💧 Water and Power · U.S. Virgin Islands
WAPA said equipment failure at Long Bay substation caused St. Thomas-St. John outage
Official document: http://www.viwapa.vi/docs/default-source/default-document-library/08302021-wapa-discusses-cause-of-service-interruption-affecting-stt-stj-district.pdf?sfvrsn=48b83f12_2
The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said an equipment failure at the Donald Francois electrical substation in Long Bay caused an electrical service interruption in the St. Thomas-St. John district on August 30, 2021.
According to WAPA, the outage began shortly before 6 a.m. and all customers were restored by 2:30 p.m.
The authority said the substation failure required a grid reconfiguration that shifted "B" feeders normally served by the facility to other feeders. WAPA said that by mid-morning, increased load on Feeders 7A and 8A, which were carrying demand from Feeders 6B, 7B, 8B and 9B, compromised primary service lines and tripped the feeders, causing another interruption.
WAPA said line crews repaired more than a half-dozen primary lines in the Subbase area before restoring service to customers on the six feeders. The authority also said the substation failure led to low-voltage problems on Feeder 10B, which was taken offline, affecting customers from Long Bay to Bovoni on St. Thomas' south side. St. John Feeder 9E also lost service when the substation initially failed and was restored after the grid was adjusted, WAPA said.
WAPA said the Donald Francois substation, which was damaged by Hurricane Irma, had been approved for major reconstruction and repair with FEMA funding. The authority said engineering specifications had been completed and requests for proposals had been issued for the project.