Governor Bryan Addresses WAPA Outages, Pledges Full Support for Restoration

Governor Albert Bryan Jr. addressed the ongoing power crisis in the St. Thomas–St. John district during Monday’s Government House press briefing, acknowledging the hardship residents have endured through weeks of repeated outages and pledging his administration’s full support for WAPA’s restoration efforts. The governor said he has been briefed on the key issues, including the failure of Unit 15 at the Randolph Harley Power Plant and a separate St. John outage linked to transmission line damage.

“My commitment is stronger today than it was when I made the statement that we will fix WAPA,” Bryan said. “That was never a boastful promise. It was a bold commitment to stay the course on a plan to turn this Authority around, even knowing full well there would be painful moments like this along the way.”

WAPA reported that Unit 15 briefly returned to service before a separate electrical issue forced another shutdown; technicians have identified the faulty component and are working on replacement. Unit 27, damaged during a December 2025 weather event, is expected back online by early May after key parts arrive from off-island fabrication in the first two weeks of April. Unit 23 has been offline since May 2025 due to gearbox damage, with repairs funded and underway.

Looking ahead, Bryan pointed to longer-term progress: bids have been received for replacing aging generators at both the Randolph Harley and Richmond power plants, and the Bovoni and Fortuna solar and battery projects are expected to add roughly 35 megawatts of capacity to the district by this summer. The governor also called on WAPA to improve its public communication around outages and restoration timelines.

This article is based on a press release issued by Government House on March 30, 2026.