As St. Thomas’ biggest generator comes back online, a smaller one will come off for a major overhaul, the V.I. Water and Power Authority’s governing board decided Thursday.
At the board’s regular meeting on St. Croix, WAPA Executive Director Hugo Hodge Jr. said gas turbine unit no. 23, the largest generator in the Randolph E. Harley Power Plant, will soon be returned to service, relieving the shortage of generating capacity on St. Thomas over the last six weeks.
The unit was down for a major overhaul when workers discovered an unexpected rotor and stator bar problem, delaying and increasing the scope of repairs. Hodge said he expected testing to take place over the weekend and that the unit will be completely returned to service before the Christmas break.
Shortly after no. 23 comes back online, WAPA plans a major overhaul of St. Thomas generator unit no. 15. The governing board authorized WAPA to pay $1.5 million to General Electric International for parts and materials for the unit. The overhaul will begin in January and be completed in 60 days, according to WAPA officials.
The board also authorized the authority to refinance a $40 million loan with FirstBank Puerto Rico. WAPA took out the original loan in 2008 to buy fuel oil when it had a cash shortage caused by temporary under-recovery of the cost of fuel from ratepayers through the Levelized Energy Adjustment Clause (LEAC) portion of their bills.
Over $24.6 million of that loan, due to mature in 2011, has been repaid, according to WAPA Chief Financial Officer Nellon Bowry. WAPA will pay off the original $40 million loan and refinance the outstanding loan balance of about $15.4 million at a lower interest rate with lower monthly payments. The new loan matures in 2013.
The board also approved adding $132,000 to a contract with Tip Top Construction to add communication conduits when trenches are dug for new water lines.
“This will allow WAPA to bring its information infrastructure to 400 new homes,” he said. “While we do the waterline extension, it just makes sense to put in the fiber optics at the same time.”
The fiber optic conduits are part of WAPA’s efforts to modernize and automate its systems and controls. On a related topic, Hodge also said two WAPA engineers presented a paper at the Geospatial Information System (GIS) conference held this week in Trinidad that was well received.
The wider Caribbean is looking at WAPA’s GIS digital mapping of its utilities as a model, he said. The electric system is fully mapped, and WAPA is working on the water system now, Hodge said.
When complete, the GIS mapping will promote greater efficiency in WAPA’s response time to outages and service interruption events in the field by immediately pinpointing trouble areas through caller identification and mapping systems.
“Eventually, this will help us move to a paperless system,” Hodge said. “Our workers will be at the site, looking at detailed maps on work laptops.”
In attendance were Chairwoman Juanita Young, and WAPA board members Donald Francois, Gerald Groner, Noel Loftus, Cheryl Jackson, Licensing and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Wayne Biggs, and Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Robert Mathes. Absent were Brenda Benjamin and V.I. Personnel Director Kenneth Hermon, Jr.
