WAPA Shares Tuesday Schedule for Rolling Blackouts on St. Croix
WAPA Shares Tuesday Schedule for Rolling Blackouts on St. Croix
Last week, WAPA announced a tentative schedule for two days of rolling blackouts at both of its power plants before withdrawing the plan. First, pushing the start time to Monday and then Tuesday.
Note: State of the Territory News published and retracted an earlier version of this update over the weekend following new information from the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority WAPA. The authority announced a new schedule today on social media that will affect Saint Croix. The April 11th update on its website is one of the last press statements issued to the general public accompanied by several social media posts.
New scheduled outages, announced by WAPA will begin Tuesday, affecting residents in St. Croix.
Last Thursday, the utility company said it was set to begin rotating power at two of its power plants due to “inclement marine weather” in St. Thomas and St. John and offline generating units on St. Croix. It also said one of its fuel would run low in the coming days, affecting one of its power plants.
In the Thursday statement, WAPA said the outages would be “necessary to prevent widespread outages and ensure continuous service to our most vulnerable communities.”
"We understand the inconvenience these outages may cause, but they are essential to prevent larger disruptions across the district and ensure more feeders are with electrical service throughout the weekend," said Ashley Bryan, Chief Operating Officer at WAPA. “We're working to find a balance between minimizing brief outages that affect a smaller number of customers and the potential for a larger-scale outage across the district. We appreciate the cooperation and understanding of our customers during this time."
As weather forecasts for the territory changed, WAPA issued an amended schedule for customers. Beginning Tuesday, several generation units are scheduled to go offline in St. Croix, resulting in reduced generation capacity at the Estate Richmond Power Plant.
WAPA is urging residents and businesses to conserve energy as much as possible to support the stability of the electrical grid and keep more feeders operational.
Outage schedule provided by WAPA.