WAPA Board Receives Wartsila Generator Update, Authorizes Insurance Renewal, Extensions to FEMA-Funded Contracts

V.I. Water and Power Authority head Karl Knight told the authority’s governing board Thursday that all four of the authority’s recently-commissioned Wartsila generators are online, despite earlier growing pains.

The caveat, Knight said, is that WAPA has been operating them with light fuel oil.

“They have been stable … in the LFO operation,” he said. “That has allowed us to sort of really focus in on what are the operational impacts when we switch to the liquefied petroleum gas — LPG — operation? And so we are suspecting that the issues that we’ve had since their commissioning are more related to their operations on the LPG.”

Knight said Wartsila personnel are on the ground to troubleshoot issues with the generators, and a subject matter expert from the manufacturer of the authority’s fuel pump has also been called in. Knight said he also met with Wartsila’s corporate arm.

“I left that meeting convinced that they understand what’s at stake and that they were making their best efforts to not only resolve and make the units operational, but also to identify what has created the problems and what are the permanent resolutions to those issues moving forward,” he said.