ODR Director Adrienne Octalien-Williams outlined a 12-month process – from initial FEMA approval to solicitations for services – for the replacement of St. Croix’s power plant at a press conference Tuesday.
(Screenshot from Government House Facebook live stream)
The government “has never before been closer” to fixing its issues with the V.I. Water and Power Authority, Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. said Tuesday while announcing that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to fund the full replacement of St. Croix’s Richmond Power Plant, along with two generators on St. Thomas.
Office of Disaster Recovery Director Adrienne Octalien-Williams outlined an approximately 12-month process from the recently received approval to the issuing of solicitations for services, saying that the government is being “proactive” by implementing a layered approach to ensure the project’s execution.
Williams-Octalien said the original estimate submitted to FEMA in December of 2022 was about $400-$600 million, and the goal now is to have the costs validated by September in order for the funds to be quickly obligated to the territory. In the interim, Octalien-Williams said her office will be working with WAPA to start drafting solicitations and putting contracts in place so that the work is not delayed once final approvals come through.
Typically, FEMA allows for repairs or replacements for damages sustained by storms or natural disasters, such as hurricanes Irma and Maria, but federal Bipartisan Act provisions allow for a “prudent replacement,” which, in this case, means the entire plant instead of just going unit-by-unit.
“An updated power plant would allow us to have interconnections that allow for more renewable energy,” Octalien-Williams said Tuesday. “The plant as it is right now is not seamless, there are some incapabilities in existence, and this would allow us to do more solar, more wind and a lot more renewable energy by having those connections right away.”
Stabilizing St. Croix’s portion of the transmission and distribution grid also means that more funding is freed up for other projects, such as replacing cables running “underground, overhead and undersea” to and from St. John, which was hit by outages Tuesday night and Wednesday, according to the governor. With two cables damaged, WAPA was experiencing issues “putting all the load on just one,” so St. Thomas was shifted to rotating power, Bryan said, which continued into Wednesday night and hit delays on at least Feeder 13 because of an onslaught of rain and resulting flash flood warning.
Bryan said the territory had been “penalized” for years because of WAPA’s inability to fully maintain its generating units, a result of the $20-25 million in continuous debt the government owed the utility over past administrations.
“All the deferred maintenance over the years is coming back to haunt us – this is why we have this cable problem still,” the governor added. “If WAPA had the money to go back and look at the cable when it was damaged, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
Along with the potential replacement of the two generators on St. Thomas through FEMA, Bryan said the government finalized a settlement agreement with Wartsila, whose crews walked off the job in January because of a “failure to pay, and other discrepancies over invoices and change orders.”
An agreement has been sent to Wartsila for signing that, once executed, will add four new nine mega-watt generation units on St. Thomas, along with a new battery backup at the Randolph Harley Power Plant that will create more power consistency for the St. Thomas-St. John district, he added. It’s expected that Wartsila’s service will resume in 30 days, the governor said, adding that this second wave of generation would stop major blackouts island-wide and smooth brownouts as a result of the battery backup.
WAPA’s board met in two emergency meetings in as many weeks to also approve a short-term fuel supply agreement with propane-supplier Vitol, which was extended for a year; initiate a Request for Proposal process that would secure a long-term fuel partner; and begin scoping out costs associated with addressing transmission issues on St. John, including the replacement of the St. John cables, which board chair Kyle Fleming said Tuesday could also result in a request to FEMA.
