ST. CROIX — The Virgin Islands Public Services Commission received updates during a regular meeting Wednesday on various matters to include the financial crisis at the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority and subsequent state of energy emergency, progress VIElectron has made with its solar farm project in Estate Petronella, and the discontinuance of ferry service between Charlotte Amalie and St. John.
WAPA officials updated the PSC on the Authority’s ongoing financial crisis, which led to Governor Albert Bryan Jr. declaring a state of energy emergency on April 22. The Senate recently extended the governor’s declaration until September 19.
Ashley Bryan, WAPA’s interim CEO, said the goal of extending the state of energy emergency was to assist the Authority with being able to stabilize the electric grid and return services to customers. Bryan said the goals for stabilizing the grid include the completion of the transaction for WAPA to purchase the Vitol propane infrastructure on St. Croix and St. Thomas with a federal grant through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“Those goals were predicated on several items, several services to the Authority that were suspended, namely the Aggreko services for the lease agreement in St. Croix, which resulted in rotating outages in St. Croix because the Authority did not have sufficient generation capacity to support all of the customer demand in St. Croix,” Bryan said while participating in the meeting virtually. “There were also payments that were outstanding to Seven Seas that caused some of our functionality on the water side to be impacted.”
Lorraine Kelly, WAPA interim chief financial officer, said the Authority’s cash position daily is critical.
“We’re in an extremely tight cash position, managing our liquidity on a daily basis,” she said. “And often that means deferring the vendors that we have in our accounts payable with invoices that are due for payment and deferring them until such time as cash is available to make payment.”
WAPA has set up payment plans with Aggreko and Seven Seas, Kelly said. She said while WAPA was initially able to make some of the payments, it has not been able to do so in the past two months.
As the Water and Power Authority struggles to pay its bills, it is making progress on a project to bring more solar energy onto the grid as part of an agreement it has with VIElectron for solar farm in Estate Petronella on St. Croix’s East End.
Christian Loranger, VIElectron manager, said all the items for the WAPA portion of the interconnection have been installed. He said VIElectron was given permission the morning of the meeting to purchase the interconnection poles, noting that the renewable energy development company already has the equipment to mount to the poles to allow final interconnection to the grid.
Loranger also discussed a second solar project his company is involved with on St. Croix in Estate Hogensborg, noting all the major components are arriving on island and being shipped to the site. He said VIElectron was recently issued its building permits for the solar project.
VIElectron is also planning to build a solar farm in Frederiksted.
“I also have purchased a piece of property in Frederiksted for a third site,” Loranger said. “I’ve asked for that power purchase agreement to be signed by WAPA.”
Loranger said all three solar projects are projected to be completed by the end of the year.
On St. Thomas, Loranger said VIElectron hand-cleared rows every 50 feet in Estate Bovoni to carefully design the solar for the site, which is a Coastal Zone Management project. He said the company is now in design phase, so it will be applying for permits. He said VIElectron will be closing on property it is purchasing at Fortuna on the West End of St. Thomas in a couple weeks. He said the company has already received a clearing permit to move forward on the project.
VIElectron also has plans for solar on St. John.
“That will be the last project that we build,” he said. “But again, we’re looking to be out of St. Croix before the end of the year and into St. Thomas just at the start of 2025.”
Loranger said VIElectron has been negotiating with the WAPA board to finalize lease agreements for battery energy storage systems that will be incorporated into the solar farms. After making about three different changes, he said the BESS lease agreements for all three sites on St. Croix must now be approved by the WAPA board, assuring PSC members that concerns raised by the WAPA board have been addressed.
“We’re looking at going about St. Croix in one direction with the BESS agreements, and they’ve asked if we can go in a different direction with the BESS lease agreements in St. Thomas and St. John,” Loranger said.
In addition to receiving an update from WAPA on its financial crisis and VIElectron on its solar projects, the PSC discussed the seasonal suspension of ferry services between downtown Charlotte Amalie and St. John.
The ferry companies posted a sign at the downtown dock last month announcing that the seasonal run between Charlotte Amalie and Cruz Bay has been suspended until November 1.
The PSC discussed the need for the two ferry companies — Varlack Ventures and Transportation Services — to have better communication with the Commission regarding changes to the ferry schedules.
