The four new generators at the heart of the St. Thomas-St. John district electrical grid aren’t just cutting-edge technology, they’re unique experiments that the long-troubled Water and Power Authority might have been better served avoiding, the Public Services Commission chair said Tuesday.
Commission Chair David Hughes called out the generators during the commission’s monthly meeting after Sen. Carla Joseph asked if there were similar generators in Trinidad and Tobago, which also uses Wartsila generators.
“These were, to answer your question, to my knowledge, the only three engines that Wärtsila has ever produced like that, and they were somewhat experimental. And they are clearly not working out very well. And they have not sold another engine of this type to anybody since. They were probably an ill-advised purchase by WAPA,” Hughes said. There is no one running this engine anywhere that I am aware of because they have not sold a single other one to a sole entity.”
A Wartsila-driven power plant in Tobago runs on hybrid liquefied natural gas and diesel, different from St. Thomas’ Randolph Harley Power Plant.
Wartsila, the Finland-based manufacturer of the generators, touted the generators as leaps forward after signing a contract with the Virgin Islands in 2020. The engines can run on diesel or propane, giving the territory options when fuel supplies fluctuate.
“In addition to being Wärtsilä’s first engine/hybrid power plant sale, this will also be the first installation utilising the Wärtsilä 32LG engine – a flexible, multi-fuel engine capable of operating with hydrocarbons in the range from propane to LFO, or carbon number C3 to C20 – a landmark in the company’s development of engine solutions,” the company wrote on its website.
Six years later, after a lengthy installation and testing phase, the engines have struggled to run on liquefied propane. The generators were taken offline in 2025 after a massive failure. Similar breakdowns resulted in a more-than-48-hour complete districtwide power outage in May. This week, a transmission failure on Wartsila 3 has also led to rotating outages on St. Thomas-St. John, though WAPA Chief Executive Officer Karl Knight said that crews have been on the ground troubleshooting.
WAPA officials have — for years and again Tuesday — said the idea behind the dual diesel-and-LPG-fuel systems gave the utility a nimbleness it didn’t previously have.
Outside consultants from Cartersville, Georgia-based J. A. Wright and Associates, wanted to look at the contracts WAPA had signed with Wärtsilä to ensure testing requirements and warranties against defects were in place. The PSC did not have the funds to pay the consultants to do a deep dive into the paperwork, however, commission members said.
Tuesday, Knight assured the commission testing and warranty provisions were in place. In fact, crews from the utility were in Wisconsin in late May to observe testing of emergency generation equipment bound for St. John, a WAPA spokesperson said.
The commission voted to keep the LEAC electrical rate at 22.2226 cents per kilowatt hour through Sept. 30.
