WAPA outages almost daily

I have no specific information but last Sunday evening businesses were having outages around Five Corners/Princese. I highly doubt WAPA was working then. I wonder (pure speculation) if they're running low on fuel oil for their power plant and are trying to conserve to manage their cash flow.
How does WAPA get their funding anyway? Is it purely from customer receipts meaning they live from billing cycle to billing cycle or do they have government funding for operations as well (and if so do they get funds monthly or one yearly lump sum?)

No problems out West...haven't had an outage since the brief one last week during the rain.

Here's the approximate outage schedule we've experienced in the past week. We're on Feeder 6*, which includes Cane Bay and Gentle Winds.
3/12 19:35-20:15
3/14 17:35-17:55
3/15 11:25-11:40, 12:00-12:20
3/18 14:40-15:25
3/19 13:05-13:06

in 2009, we were doing really well, sometimes going months between outages. Before that, it was out about once per week, for 30 minutes.

* According to http://stcroixsource.com/content/community/data/2005/07/26/wapa-electrical-feeders-st-croix, Feeder # 6 is: Aureo Diaz heights, Betsy's Jewel, Blue Mountain, Cane Bay, Canaan, Concordia-East, Fredensborg Old Village, Gentle Winds, Glynn, JFK Housing (partial), Judith's Fancy, LaGrande Princesse (north), LaValle, Little Fountain, Mon Bijou, Morning Star, Old Bethlehem, Slob, St. John (partial), Sugar Beach, Ville LaReine Shopping Center.

Practicing for hurricane season ? It's been less often on northeast STT but frequent.

Pamela

Jumbie...

Have you called WAPA to report the problems? They won't know if you don't tell them.

I think WAPA knows when there's an outage, otherwise the power would never come back on (would it? I don't know if human intervention is always needed). When an entire feeder goes down affecting thousands of customers, I bet a few of them pick up the phone.

We know when its out. But we don't live over there. So, its really not an issue. Kind of like the streets without senators have the bigger pot holes.

Sincerely, WAPA

We have not called WAPA on these outages since we can quickly determine if it is just our house or is widespread. Since they have been widespread throughout a section (ie feeder 6), there are several business's and residents we know "always call" just to make sure WAPA knows the electric went out. Therefore STXBob is correct in his statement.

Since the government didn't pay its electric bill, we couldn't afford to buy new squirrels for the generators
sorry
~WAPA

I heard that the JFL Hospital is currently running on its generators instead of WAPA to save money.
My first thought was, "that's not a good idea."
My second thought was, "They can't pay their bill again."
My third thought was, "Don't get sick right now!"

Specialk--

How do you suggest we notify WAPA when the number for the line dept. (773-0150) is either busy or just rings until the line goes dead.......

boyd46, i was gonna say that

we live on the northside of STT and from mid feb to mid march we were getting similar outages to what stxbob described...frequency and duration. Called lots of times and got the usual BS. Once was told they were upgrading some material that was not up to standard and installed during Marilyn. That may be true. It seemed like there were all planned due to frequency and duration, but hard to tell. Good uptime in 2009 spoiled us as the recent outages were getting irritating. I think if they just published some sort of maintenance schedule, telling us they were upgrading the system so that we would know there was light at the end of the tunnel, then we could all live with it. The problem is lack of communication.

Of course, our downtime sequence could have just been isolated incidents, but I doubt it.

Neil,

I believe what you say is true. I have a friend who works there and told me the same thing...but he also told me that they are saving a ton of money even after factoring in maintenance on the generators over what Wapa charges.

Wapa is so ridiculous it's cheaper to generate your own if you have a big enough facility. It doesn't surprise me that the hospital can run their own power plant for less than Wapa would charge them. The Buccaneer does it as well.

I think that WAPA is the single biggest problem in the VI. Everything is so expensive here because of Wapa. I know people who own fast food restaraunts here and pay $6,000/month electricity and their cooking equipment is propane! The cost of Wapa isn't just on your personal bill, its reflected in every purchase that you make, and the mismanagement for so long has led to many of the problems in the island's economy.

Sean

I would like to see some of these commercial bills posted. Heck I may just bring a good generator in with me.

Can anyone tell me the current cost of Propane ? And the current commercial electrical rates ? I know they are high,so you will not give me a heart attack. I know what I am getting into and to say the least, I just like to stay on top of it.

last year when wapa was at its highest i think it was about .46 pkh residential might have been at .41pkh ( do i have the initials pkh correct? i haven not checked our rates in awhile.

Thanks Spee1dy. I was told during the AG fair that residential rates were currently .34 a kilowatt. I just wonder if commercial usually runs about .7 cents higher.

As I recall the high number quoted here was .51/kwh.

last year when wapa was at its highest i think it was about .46 pkh residential might have been at .41pkh ( do i have the initials pkh correct? i haven not checked our rates in awhile.

Just remember - the main reason why WAPA is so high is because THEFT of electricity is so high. I believe less than 1/2 the island is paying for all the electricity. When you consider government employees living in public housing with free electricity, things like Pueblo's owner stealing $100k+, everytime public works goes to clean up a delapidated area (like last week) they find pirated electrical connections, government agencies not paying their own electric bills, etc. it's not wonder electricity is so high.

The word is "kleptocracy."

Hey Neil... I thought you made that word up... Nope It's real ... Thanks for puttin the butter on the bread for me .. good description on what's going on

Just to clarify, people living in housing projects do have to pay their own WAPA bill for light and water and if they have it, a cable bill too. And many of the housing projects in the VI are not totally free. A lot of it is "subsidized housing" so most people do pay some amount of rent. A two bedroom is typically around $400-600, based on whether you have a job or not . Which most people do, but often those jobs don't pay enough to support a family fully. Don't get me wrong, there are people who abuse the system, but there are also a lot of hardworking people and families in projects too.

But.. Don't the project people pay only a percentage of Wapa...based on their income (if any) so wapa is still subsidized ???

No. As far as I know, they are responsible for the whole thing.