St. Maarten’s Energy Crisis
PHILIPSBURG--This time The Daily Herald’s selection for Story of the Year is probably no big surprise to most, because electricity outages dominated the news during much of 2024.
As a result it was practically a “no-contest” affair, despite the fact the utilities provider GEBE had already been chosen in 2022 because of a debilitating ransomware attack and its impact on the billing system.
Things also tend to be obvious for good reason, as is the case here. The government-owned company and its production problems have been on the minds of many over the past year.
It all started with load-shedding “due to unforeseen circumstances” on January 8, although fears that this would adversely affect parliamentary elections three days later did not come true. GEBE said it
had been doing preventative maintenance on one of its engines.
Mention was made of the “N-2” criterion, meaning two of the largest engines can be down while keeping sufficient capacity. However, mechanical failures had occurred. On January 10 a feeder cable to part of
Philipsburg also tripped.
In early February a private contractor struck one of the underground cables. That same day the company reported operational issues with the cooling systems for two of its smaller units due to rough seas.
In March it became clear that leasing additional mobile engine capacity was being considered to cope with peak demand of 56.4 megawatts (MW). The company lacked any redundancy or “spinning reserves” when one of it large generators tripped.
On May 5 a bearing failure occurred in one the largest units, #19, which had been pending a major overhaul in the fourth quarter. This was followed by a short-circuit explosion on May 13 at one of the transformer stations, caused by rodents, which damaged one of the engines.
Later that month GEBE announced that of its 10 traditional diesel units, three producing 18% of total output had exceeded their 30-year technical lifespan and become less reliable.
A country-wide electricity “blackout” lasting for up to six hours for some areas at the start of June raised alarm. Fire broke out in the auxiliary boiler of Engine 9, rendering both
it and Engine 8 inoperative, along with Engine 19 that was already out of service. In addition, there was an unexpected fuel leak at one of the units that month.
Original plans to bring in auxiliary production units from Curaçao and Aruba failed to materialise, so seven containerised generators producing in total 10MW were rented in the US for three months at approximately US $300,000 per month excluding fuel cost. They arrived on the island mid-July and were put into operation about a month later.
Several large clients with back-up generators, including resorts, agreed to run these based on an arranged schedule to alleviate GEBE during peak demand hours. Near the end of July there were also “technical issues” with engines 17 and 18 that caused disruptions in service.
In the meantime another 20 lease-to-own generators of 1MW each with essential accompanying equipment, including fuel shortage tanks, arrived during October and November.
These cost about US $200,000 monthly over three years. Last month also saw Engine 19 coming back online, effectively putting an end to more than six months of frequent, widespread and prolonged load-shedding.
A capital investment loan of 75.6 million Netherlands Antillean guilders was recently approved for three new large units of 9MW each to ensure future energy stability, after a year few will easily forget in terms of power cuts.
