In 2017 hurricanes Irma and Maria damaged the electric distribution lines and power generating units. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, residents and businesses receive energy through a system of two fossil fuel power plants made up of combustion and steam turbines running on fuel oil and propane, seawater desalination plants, several solar power facilities, substations, undersea cables, and over 1,000 miles of transmission and distribution cables. St. Croix and St. Thomas maintain their reserves and backup generation units and are on two separate power grids. This infrastructure provides electricity to an estimated 107,000 territory-wide resident population, 45,000 residential, and 9,000 commercial customers across the principal islands. The USVI Water and Power Authority (WAPA) owns and runs most of the energy infrastructure. The U.S. Virgin Islands imports petroleum products to run the energy system; it has no fossil energy reserves, some renewable energy resources “mainly solar.” WAPA’s electricity rates are among the highest globally and are almost three times higher than average rates throughout the United States. This is partially due to old and inefficient fossil fuel power plants which make up a significant amount of the USVI’s power mix. Combined with a historically unreliable power grid, destruction from recent hurricanes, and a decrease in solar and battery storage costs, many customers are installing independent generation systems that use renewable energy technology.