Early Sunday morning, St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands experienced a total blackout, marking the second outage over the weekend. This disruption underscores the growing frequency of power outages in the U.S. territory.

The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority attributed the outages to the loss of generation at a power plant. A blackout initially occurred late on Saturday, and although crews restored power overnight, another blackout followed.

St. Thomas, the main island, is home to over 42,000 residents, while nearly 4,000 live on St. John. Rising frustration among residents was evident online, with many demanding government intervention to restore reliable electricity.

Governor Albert Bryan Jr. has committed approximately $100 million in federal funding to address the power issues. Despite this investment, the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority faces challenges in maintaining service. In April, officials informed legislators that outages were linked to storms, equipment shortages, weak generation capacity, breakdowns, and deferred maintenance.

More than half of the petroleum-fueled generators are over 25 years old, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Furthermore, hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017 severely damaged up to 90% of the U.S. Virgin Islands’ transmission and distribution systems.

The utility agency plans temporary generation and additional battery energy storage at a main power plant in the coming months to mitigate future outages.

Renewable energy constitutes only around 3% of the U.S. territory’s power generation. The average electricity price in 2024 was approximately 33 cents per kilowatt hour, which is double the U.S. average of 16 cents.