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Author: jrobinson

SolarBuzz Jamaica > Articles by: jrobinson
JPS News

Time to top-up your power

November 16, 2012

JAMAICA Public Service‘s (JPS) customers may soon be able to pay their bills in advance through a pre-paid system that will be implemented next year.

“Jamaicans already have a pre-paid psychology, said Kelly Tomblin, president and chief executive officer of JPS.

JPS president and CEO Kelly Tomblin says a pre-paid meter would help its customers control how much they spend on electricity.

Most people in Jamaica are used to paying for their cell phones with pre-paid cards.

“We believe the system can be easily managed and it gives customers a way to mange their expenses” she said.

Pre-paid metres will form an integral part of the company‘s program to help reduce losses and is a key strategic initiative in 2013, the company said.

A programme to persuade customers to take the new metres will be launched early next year.

So far, the project’s team has conducted research and the programme is in its planning stages, JPS said.

Preliminary feedback from customers is that it is something they would appreciate, said Winsome Callum, JPS’s head of corporate communications.

Some of the company’s customers don’t just pay their bills on time, they pay in advance,” she said. “As soon as they get their income, they pay.”

Tomblin reckons the system will be economically viable.

JPS has already installed 6,000 Korean-built metres that have a pre-paid capacity, but the software to support the system is not yet in place.

Elsewhere in the world, “where these systems have been installed, there is a high level of customer satisfaction. It gives the customer control,” JPS said. Customers know how much they can afford to spend and they regulate their use.

The system would offer an alternative to disconnection for customers who have trouble paying their bills.

Currently, the only tool the company has with people who don’t pay on time is to cut them off, since it can’t charge interest or late fees.

“Something may come up. And for some reason, a customer may run into problems and have their light cut off,” Tomblin said. “Paying in advance will spare our customers.”

But the metres are unlikely to address a bigger problem for the company, the 25 per cent system loss due to theft. Many power users have never paid for their electricity in their lives, Tomblin told the Jamaica Observer‘s Monday Exchange.

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News

Lingering power outage after Sandy triggers anger

November 16, 2012

NEW YORK, USA (AP) — As the number of nights without power stretched on for thousands left in the dark after Superstorm Sandy, patience understandably turned to anger and outrage.

But an Associated Press analysis of outage times from other big hurricanes and tropical storms suggests that, on the whole, the response to Sandy by utility companies, especially in hardest-hit New York and New Jersey, was typical – or even a little faster than elsewhere after other huge storms.

Government JPS News

Consumers Paying For 17% Of JPS Losses Says Paulwell

November 13, 2012

Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell
Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell

Power provider Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) currently passes on to its consumers 17 per cent of the costs of its inefficiencies – including illegal extraction of power – valued at billions of dollars, says Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell.

But the Government is determined to have those inefficiencies, including heat losses, decreased even before the liquefied natural gas plant to be constructed by the JPS at Old Harbour, St Catherine becomes operational in two years or so.

“Currently, the JPS passes on 17 per cent of its inefficiency to all of us,” said Paulwell, the minister of science, technology, energy and mining.

“Some of that inefficiency is as a result of theft and we have to solve that problem. There are some discussions now taking place to deal with that,” said the minister addressing an executive breakfast meeting organised by First Global Bank at the GraceKennedy headquarters in Kingston on Friday.

“We believe that there is more that can be done about theft, and when we looked at the data it is not only downtown or my constituency (of East Kingston and Port Royal). We see some substantial numbers uptown and it is not fair. It is immoral for us to be paying for that.”

mcpherse.thompson@gleanerjm.com

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JPS News

VIDEO: JPS admits running out of options as electricity theft jumps

November 13, 2012

ELECTRICITY theft continues to hit the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) hard, amounting to US$32 million so far this year. In fact, so pervasive has been the illegal activity that the company is acknowledging that it is running out of options to stem it.

“It’s at a high rate, and I see it increasing, simply because as electricity rates increase… We have run out of options, we have just run out of options,” Kelly Tomblin, JPS’s president and CEO told the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange yesterday.

Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) President and CEO Kelly Tomblin (left) addressing yesterday

JPS

Customers To Receive Estimated Oct Bills – JPS

November 12, 2012

The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has said that some 123,000 customers will receive estimated bills for October.

The company said this was due mainly to the disruption in the company’s meter-reading schedule caused by Hurricane Sandy. The JPS said it was unable to carry out meter reading in some communities in the period immediately after the hurricane, as many of the company’s meter readers were redeployed to assist with restoration.

However, yesterday the company was unable to state the communities that would be getting these bills.

“Our billing system is set up to calculate estimated bills using an average of the last three actual readings of the customer’s meter. Some customers may, therefore, have been estimated for days when they were without electricity following the hurricane,” explained Winsome Callum, JPS head of corporate communication.

Callum said in the event that a customer’s usage is overestimated, this will be reflected in the next meter reading. She said based on the reading, any necessary adjustment will be made to the customer’s next bill to reflect his or her actual usage.

The JPS says customers who have concerns about their bills are asked to contact customer care centre at 1-888-225-5577 (LIME) or 1-888-935-5577 (Digicel), or visit their nearest customer service office and speak with a representative.

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Alternative Energy Government News

EU Funding Energy Project In Jamaica

November 6, 2012

The European Union is funding a multi-million dollar energy service company (ESCO) project aimed at conserving electricity use across the island.

Executive Director of the Jamaica Productivity Centre, Dr Charles Douglas, said the 36-month J$65 million initiative could increase productivity and help create jobs as well as advance economic growth.

“We expect that the project will also do a number of other things. It will introduce new business modules, in terms of energy efficiency activities. It will also increase dialogue, trust, and confidence among the Jamaican populous,” he said.

He said the ESCO project has several components, including building public awareness, conducting training workshops, audits, and measurement and verification to determine the possible savings of the plan.

“With this project, the centre hopes to have an increase in energy effectiveness, as a result of the measures to be implemented. We expect to have an increase in the number of renewable and energy efficiency projects islandwide, to reduce high costs,” he said.

Douglas said that ECSO projects are common worldwide and tends to be very successful in countries where energy prices are extremely high, such as Latin America and the Caribbean.

He said that Jamaica, in comparison to other Caribbean countries, has one of the highest energy prices, both for electricity and gasolene, hence the reason for introducing the cost-effective initiative.

“At the end of the day, we want to see a reduction in the oil import bill, which obviously will help to reduce the foreign expenditure and imported oil, which the country is currently faced with,” he said.

Douglas added that unlike Jamaica, some countries receive energy subsidies, both for gasolene and electricity, but “our market is totally liberalised, in that we have no subsidy on electricity or gasolene, so we have to find ways to reduce these high costs”.

Both sectors to benefit

He said that the ESCO project aims to achieve this, and notes that if consumers conform to the practices of the project, then it will be a success and that both the private and public sectors would benefit in the future.

“We expect substantial benefits from this initiative to both small and medium enterprises islandwide. We are anticipating significant savings in the public sector, stemming from ECSO energy savings activities,” he added.

“There will be indicators to identify if the project has achieved success. We will be looking at schools islandwide as a possible indicator, while we conduct our evaluation to measure the achievements of the project.

“When the project concludes, we would like to have in place measures that will allow it to be sustainable. We are building the capacity of the project by getting the schools involved. From this, the hope is to sensitise children, so that they can go home, and encourage their parents to adopt energy efficiency practices” he said.

– CMC

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