Irregular power supply wreaks havoc with equipment
Several public-sector entities are now reporting damage to expensive equipment because of surges in the electricity supply from the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS).
The power surges have left some entities nursing hefty repair bills, while they await compensation.
Among those hit hardest are hospitals, whose existence depend on sufficient electricity to keep life-saving equipment running.
The JPS has admitted that there have been complaints and claims for compensation from public entities such as hospitals but it has refused to provide details.
But checks by
Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell – File photo
Jerome Reynolds, Gleaner Writer
Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell has ordered the Board of Directors of Petrojam Limited to undertake a probe into last week’s release of noxious fumes from the refinery, the second time in five months.
Last Wednesday, a number of people in the vicinity of the Spanish Town and Hagley Park and Molynes roads in St Andrew, complained about feeling ill as a result of the fumes.
Petrojam has written to the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) indicating that during site clean-up operations, the liquid contents of a five-gallon plastic pail were released on to the ground.
The energy minister has expressed grave concern about what he says is the safety and security practices at Petrojam, noting that is the second time in six months that noxious fumes have been released from the refinery.
Paulwell says he is also concern Petrojam did not make a full report of last week
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.
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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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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.
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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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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.
Robert Pickersgill (centre), Minister with responsibility for Water, Land, Environment, and Climate Change, presses the button to officially inaugurate the West Kingston Power Plant. The state-of-the-art technology installed at the Industrial Terrace location is more efficient at converting fuel to energy, which should reduce the amount of energy lost to heat. In light of the current thrust in the industry towards LNG, the power station, which has been designed to run on heavy fuel oil, has the capacity to run on gas after minimum conversion efforts.
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Robert Pickersgill (centre), Minister with responsibility for Water, Land, Environment, and Climate Change, presses the button to officially inaugurate the West Kingston Power Plant. The state-of-the-art technology installed at the Industrial Terrace location is more efficient at converting fuel to energy, which should reduce the amount of energy lost to heat. In light of the current thrust in the industry towards LNG, the power station, which has been designed to run on heavy fuel oil, has the capacity to run on gas after minimum conversion efforts. |
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THE Jamaica Public Service (JPS) says it will be rolling out an education campaign as it seeks to partner with communities to manage overhanging vegetation around utility poles.
President of JPS Kelly Tomblin said while the company has always had a vegetation management programme, it will be stepping up its efforts to deal with the problem, which contributed in part to the more than 6,000 poles that fell during the passage of Hurricane Sandy last month.
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TOMBLIN… Vegetation management requires a lot of community interaction |
“When I first came I contacted some experts on vegetation management to come down to Jamaica and work with our team and start a new vegetation programme a month before the hurricane,” Tomblin told editors and reporters at the Jamaica Observer weekly Monday Exchange held at the newspaper’s head office in Kingston.
Vegetation management, she said, is not only about removing the overhanging trees and shrubs but being able to stump their regrowth through the use of chemicals.
“We have recently made some changes in how we do vegetation control,” Tomblin said. She said vegetation management is particularly challenging in Jamaica because of the remote areas and how plants such as bamboo grow, and as such there is need for another approach.
“Vegetation management requires a lot of community interaction… and so one of the things we hope to have more is community partnership in vegetation control both on individual owner perspective and community,” Tomblin said.
Speaking to the power company‘s handling of the restoration programme across the island in the aftermath of the category one storm, Tomblin said there is a limitation to the appropriate resources the company has at its disposal.
“We all wish we had unlimited resources, and if we did, instead of 80 crews we would have trained and ready to go 200 crews, but that would mean an even greater upward pressure on electric prices because most time we are not having an outage,” Tomblin said.
Given the challenges, Tomblin said the company did well in restoring power to 90 per cent of its customers in four days.
“From my more than two decades being involved in storm restoration, having 90 per cent of customers back in power after a hurricane is a very good solid performance,” she said.
“To get 90 per cent of the people back in four days, I don’t know how much you can improve on that,” she added, noting that there are ways to make significant improvement on the remaining 10 per cent.
She said there is a disconnect in the understanding of what the JPS teams really do go through and what is required.
“If I tell a guy from the United States to take a pole and walk down two miles they would look at me like I have three heads, because they are not going to put that on their back and walk down the hill, but our guys have to do that,” she said.
To date, the JPS said only 2,000 of its 480,000 customers are still without power. For these customers, Tomblin said the workers are having problems accessing the areas because of landslide and other challenges.
The preliminary estimate for the restoration works is said to be in the region of US$7 million, and is expected to climb.
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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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