WAPA's failure to buy enough diesel prolongs rolling blackouts for residents

The V.I. Water and Power Authority’s failure to purchase enough diesel to power generators at the Randolph Harley Power Plant caused rolling blackouts to continue in the St. Thomas-St. John district through the weekend.

The cash-strapped utility has struggled for months to purchase sufficient fuel to meet the increasing customer demand during summer heat waves, and the latest blackouts started Tuesday. Customers were left without power in the early morning hours for three days, interrupting sleep for thousands of students and workers, some unable to report to classes or work, and leaving elderly and disabled residents without reliable electricity to power air conditioning and medical devices.

New WAPA CEO Karl Knight in testimony on Thursday, told senators that it is the utility’s hope that new Wartsila generators will stabilize the grid by December. Until then, WAPA customers will continue to suffer with unreliable power. In a statement issued that same day, WAPA said that the blackouts had ended, as there was enough fuel to keep generators running until a scheduled fuel delivery Saturday.

Around midnight Friday, however, WAPA abruptly published a new blackout schedule on Facebook, with outages set to start at 10 a.m. Saturday. Many of the planned outages did not occur Saturday, but the blackouts continued Sunday because the fuel delivery was delayed, leaving thousands of customers without power for hours at a time.