Blackouts Plague U.S. Virgin Islands Amid Aging Infrastructure

St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands experienced a total blackout early Sunday, marking the second such incident over the weekend. The frequent power cuts highlight ongoing struggles within the territory’s utility sector.

The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority attributed the outages to a lack of generation capacity at a power plant. A blackout struck late Saturday, and although restoration efforts succeeded briefly, another outage occurred shortly after.

St. Thomas, with over 42,000 residents, and St. John, home to nearly 4,000, face growing frustration as power outages become more frequent. Social media platforms have seen a surge of demands for the government to resolve the issue.

Governor Albert Bryan Jr. has promised to improve the situation, directing around $100 million in federal funds toward the utility. Nonetheless, the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority continues struggling to deliver reliable service.

In April, officials reported to legislators that the power outages resulted from various issues, including storms, inadequate equipment supply, insufficient generation capacity, equipment failures, and postponed maintenance. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration reveals that more than half of the petroleum-fueled generating units are over 25 years old. It also mentioned the devastation from hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, which destroyed up to 90% of the territory’s transmission and distribution systems.

The utility agency plans to introduce temporary generation solutions and additional battery energy storage at a primary power plant soon, aiming to reduce outage frequency.

Currently, renewable sources provide roughly 3% of the territory’s power. Electricity costs in 2024 averaged about 33 cents per kilowatt-hour, significantly higher than the U.S. average of 16 cents, according to the U.S. energy agency.