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TOMBLIN REJECTS ‘SCARE TACTICS’ ACCUSATION

March 18, 2017 Webmaster

For full article with audio clips click here

President of the Jamaica Public Service Company, JPS, Kelly Tomblin, is rejecting claims that she’s using scare tactics to keep businesses from turning to renewable sources of energy.

In an interview yesterday on Nationwide This Morning, Chief Executive Officer of Solar Buzz Jamaica, Jason Robinson, accused JPS of using ‘scare tactics’.

This was in response to comments attributed to Ms. Tomblin in a recent Gleaner report that the company could be forced to raise electricity rates if its top customers leave the grid.

But speaking with Nationwide News yesterday, Ms. Tomblin sought to clarify the comments she made to the Gleaner newspaper.

She’s insisting she’s not using a scare tactics.

Ms. Tomblin says she would prefer companies stay on the power grid.

This, as the intermittent use of the grid is more of a burden on JPS than if a company were to be removed completely.

And, Ms. Tomblin says the JPS doesn’t build LNG plants contrary to Mr Robinson’s claim.

He’d said the light and power company has been offering to set up small LNG plants for large companies, which would also take them off the grid.

She’s also refuting his claim that JPS’s rates are going up.

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SOLAR BUZZ CEO ACCUSES JPS OF SCARE TACTICS

March 18, 2017 Webmaster

For full article with interview clips click here

CEO of Solar Buzz Jamaica, Jason Robinson, says the Jamaica Public Service Company, JPS, is using scare tactics to keep businesses from leaving the grid and turning to alternative energy.

In a recent interview with the Gleaner newspaper, JPS CEO Kelly Tomblin was quoted as saying that it could be forced to raise electricity rates if its top customers leave their grid.

Robinson says could mitigate any losses from clients who’ve switched to alternative energy by running a more efficient operation and doing more to combat theft.

He says JPS is already doing a lot to diversify its own fuel sources to keep energy costs down.

And, Robinson is also criticizing the power company for being hypocritical.

He claims JPS has been offering to set up small LNG plants for large companies, which would also take them off the grid.

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Power Warning – Increased Use Of Renewables Could Burn The Pockets Of Some JPS Customers

March 18, 2017 Webmaster

A field of photovoltaic solar panels providing alternative to the supply from the JPS.

With many local entities turning to solar systems or other renewable systems to reduce their reliance on more expensive energy supplied by the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), there is a another indication that persons who remain on the JPS grid could face the consequences.

“We all should be concerned and thoughtful. You don’t want everybody who can afford solar on their roof going off the grid because you would still have to pay for the grid,” CEO of the JPS, Kelly Tomblin, told The Sunday Gleaner during a recent interview.

“How do we take care of a particular company so that we also take care of the whole? How do we find a way to make it affordable for everybody and don’t just let people cherry-pick off the grid?” added Tomblin.

There is no official registry of the amount of renewable energy being utilised on the island, but it is estimated that approximately 35 megawatts of renewable energy has been installed between residential and business customers in recent years.

The target is to have 20 per cent of the country’s energy need being supplied by renewable sources by 2018, moving to 30 per cent by 2030.

Energy Sales

The JPS has recorded four years of decline in energy sales from 2010 to 2014, but has seen a turnaround in the last two years with a two per cent increase in 2015 and a four per cent increase in 2016.

“This could be due to the fact that the cost of electricity to customers has dropped by about 25 per cent over that time (usage tends to increase when the price of electricity is lower),” the JPS said in an emailed response to questions from our news team.

According to the JPS, while it has not yet seen any revenue fallout from renewable energy installations, it recognises “that energy sales could have been higher if some customers had not gone off the grid”.

If more paying customers move to renewables and leave the JPS, the company will be selling to a smaller group of paying customers and could be forced to find alternative ways to remain profitable, which could see electricity cost increase for some customers.

If Top Customers Left

Tomblin admitted that if the company’s top 50 customers were all to leave the grid it would cause a serious problem, but she argued that she is confident that these companies are cognisant of their responsibility to the Jamaican people.

“I am really encouraged, having been in meetings with our top 50 customers, and we are having a lot of meetings with the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and the Energy Committee to say how we can balance personal and country interest,” said Tomblin.

“People who are adding solar are doing so during the day; that is not when Jamaica has a peak. So unless they have storage we have to maintain the same power plant and the same grid, because they come on the JPS system at nights, so they still have to pay and, therefore, it is not that much of an impact to the system,” said Tomblin.

But PSOJ President Paul Scott said the decision to remain on the grid or not is one entities will have to decide based on what is best for their business.

“I am aware of some members who have not come off the grid because of the impact it might have on residential users, while other members have come off the grid,” said Scott, who is a member of the Electricity Sector Enterprise Team.

“So one must make their own economic decision based upon their own situation. Serious companies would take that (impact on residential users) into consideration. I would encourage our members to make decisions that will impact the overall competitiveness of Jamaica. Different industries have different utility requirements and therefore, you can’t generalise.”

According to Scott, the use of the grid will change over time, as PSOJ members, and the private sector as a whole, are always going to calculate the cost of energy as a significant part of their business.

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Wigton Could Stimulate Renewables Revolution

March 9, 2017 Webmaster

Hands-on training is a key element of Wigton courses. Here (from left) Renford Smith, Marcus Grant and Alan Searchwell connect the electrical components of a solar panel at the Wigton Renewable Energy Training Lab in Rose Hill, Manchester, recently.

“BY BEING natural and sincere, one often can create revolutions without having sought them.”

The Wigton Wind Farm team could be drawing inspiration from these words by French fashion designer Christian Dior, as it rolls out a training programme designed to fuel interest and inspire further action on renewable energy in Jamaica.

“It is open to anybody who has an interest. It is open to the general public,” said Sanja Simmonds, engineer and training coordinator at the wind farm, which is located at Rose Hill in Manchester where they began the renewable energy training courses this year.

In January, the farm trained 20 people from across sectors — private and public, and including students as young as 19 years old — in photovoltaics.

“Once you have an interest, it just goes from there,” Simmonds noted. “(The training) is how we can stimulate that interest and have greater interest for the technologies.”

The first training course ran for three days, as will the next one looking at solar thermal energy to be held in April.

The third training course, which will focus on wind energy and hydro, will be held in July. The final one for the year will be held in November and focus on bio-energy.

Up to now, Simmonds said they had been careful to avoid over saturation, with each course having a cap of 15 participants, with provisions for no more than an additional five.

“We don’t want anyone lost. If you have too many people, you may have persons sitting around and not paying attention. What we want is for participants to be fully engaged and hands on,” he said.

“The delivery of the first course was extremely effective, based the feedback we got. The training courses are not for you to you only to come and sit down before a PowerPoint. It is 50 per cent theory and 50 per cent practical. So we had participants (from the first training course) actually doing, for example, photovoltaic installation, sizing wires, sizing panels, etc.,” Simmonds added.

The training coordinator explained further the thinking behind Wigton’s efforts.

“Previously Wigton’s tagline was ‘Making renewables a breeze’. Now our tagline is ‘securing Jamaica’s energy future’. To secure the energy future, you could do it in multiple ways. You could do it from a commercial point of view, which is what Wigton is. So we harness clean energy from the wind,” he explained.

“You could also do it from a technical standpoint, which is where we train. So we are trying to create interest in renewable energy and ensure that people have a better appreciation for it. So it is two fold — the commercial side and the technical side,” the engineer added.

The plan, he said, is to have the programme be annual.

“The courses will develop as time goes on. We didn’t want to start it five days and then people wanted three. So we started it on a minimal scale to see what the feedback would be like and the feedback was really exceptional,” Simmonds said.

“So now we will look at expanding the courses. Maybe in the future we will have five days of courses or even two weeks,” he said.

They also have their sights set on having the courses accredited.

“Currently it is just a certificate of participation (that participants receive), but as we go along, we are trying to figure out how we can get the courses certified,” Simmonds noted.

He was, however, quick to emphacise: “We are not trying to compete against the other institutions providing the training. What we are trying to do is stimulate the interested among the general public and then grow that interest.”

“When we talk about the energy policy, one of the core parts of it is to increase renewable energy penetration into the grid. If you are to do so, you have to make people aware of the type of the technologies that you are pushing,” he added.

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Polluted environments kill 1.7 million children each year, WHO says

March 6, 2017 Webmaster

Each year, environmental pollutants cost an estimated 1.7 million lives among children under 5, according to World Health Organization reports released Monday.

The causes include unsafe water, lack of sanitation, poor hygiene practices and indoor and outdoor pollution, as well as injuries.

The new numbers equate to these pollutants being the cause of one in four deaths of children 1 month to 5 years old.

One new report highlights that the most common causes of child death are preventable through interventions already available to the communities most affected. These causes are diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia, which can be prevented using insecticide-treated bed nets, clean cooking fuels and improved access to clean water.

“A polluted environment is a deadly one — particularly for young children,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, said in a statement. “Their developing organs and immune systems, and smaller bodies and airways, make them especially vulnerable to dirty air and water.”

Infants exposed to indoor or outdoor air pollution, including secondhand smoke, have an increased risk of pneumonia during childhood as well as an increased risk of chronic respiratory diseases — such as asthma — for the rest of their lives, one report states.

The global body also highlighted the increased risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer from exposure to air pollution.

More than 90% of the world’s population is thought to breathe air that violates quality guidelines set by the WHO.

The reports further list ways in which these risk factors can be removed to prevent disease and death.

“Investing in the removal of environmental risks to health, such as improving water quality or using cleaner fuels, will result in massive health benefits,” said Dr. Maria Neira, director of the WHO’s Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health. “A polluted environment results in a heavy toll on the health of our children.”

The growth of electronic and electrical waste is also a concern, according to the report. If not disposed of correctly, waste can expose children to toxins that can harm intelligence and cause attention deficits, lung damage and cancer.

Also among the fears: an increasing risk of climate change, due to rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels, boosting pollen growth and possibly asthma. An estimated 44% of asthma cases among children worldwide are thought to be related to environmental exposures, the reports say.

In addition to highlighting the burden borne by young children, the new reports suggest ways in which risk factors — and therefore death rates — can be reduced.

These include reducing air pollution, improving access to clean water and sanitation, protecting pregnant women from secondhand smoke and building safer environments in order to reduce accidents and injuries.

“Both indoor and outdoor air pollution have an important effect on the health and development of children, and not just in the stereotypical ‘polluted cities’ context but also for very poor rural families who cook indoors,” said Joy Lawn, professor of maternal reproductive and child health epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“Clean water is taken for granted by families in high-income countries, and yet those children in the hottest climates, facing the greatest risks of infectious diseases, are the very ones with least access to clean water.”

But Lawn added that pollution is not the only risk factor when it comes to child mortality.

“We also need to be careful in attributing these deaths just to dirty water or pollution,” she said. “To prevent deaths from pneumonia, we also need vaccines and antibiotics; from malaria, we also need bed nets and anti-malarials. It Is not just about pollution.”

Other potential solutions mentioned in the reports are removing mould and pests from housing, removing lead paint, ensuring sanitation and good nutrition at schools and using better urban planning to create more green spaces in cities. Safe management of industrial waste by industries is also highlighted, along with stopping the use of hazardous pesticides and child labor in agriculture.

The report “highlights the scale of the problem of how environmental pollution affects the health of children across the globe,” said John Holloway, professor of allergy and respiratory genetics at the University of Southampton. Holloway recently authored a report on the lifelong impact of air pollution.

“We must also remember that it is not just the acute effects of pollution on children’s health mentioned in the report that we need to be concerned about, it is also the potential long-term effects of exposure to pollutants in early life that can have lifelong effects on health and well-being,” he said.

Holloway also stressed that this is not a concern solely for developing countries. “Exposures such as air pollution and secondhand tobacco smoke affects the health of children in developed countries such as the UK as well,” he said.

But, like the WHO, he also stressed that things can be done to help solve the problem and said authorities and individuals should act now — as well as think long-term — to protect the health of future generations.

“We all have a responsibility for reducing environmental pollution,” he said. “This is going to require changes in society such as better monitoring of pollution and taking into account the true long-term economic cost of pollution when assessing the cost of measures to reduce environmental pollution.”

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JNSBL Open For Climate Business

February 23, 2017 Webmaster

Seated from (left) Audrey Sewell, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation; Milverton Reynold, managing director of the Development Bank of Jamaica; Gillian Hyde, general manager of JN Small Business Loans, and Allison Rangolan McFarlane, chief technical director, Environmental Foundation of Jamaica sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate the administration of the Climate Change Adaptation Line of Credit (CCALoC). The CCALoC will provide financing to Micro, Small and Medium Size Enterprises in the tourism and agri-business sectors across Jamaica, to increase resilience to climate change in these sectors. The signing took place at the Office of the Prime Minister in St. Andrew last year. Looking on are Minister with Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Economic Growth and Job Creation, Daryl Vaz and Therese Turner-Jones, general manager of the Inter-American Development Bank Caribbean Department.

Jamaica National Small Business Loans (JNSBL) is looking to vamp up interest in its US$2.5-million adaptation to climate change line of credit, catering exclusively to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) from the agriculture, tourism and related sectors.

“In the coming months, JNSBL will be strengthening its efforts through collaborations with related parties in the tourism and agro value chain to further promote the special loan facility,” said Jacqueline Shaw Nicholson, JNSBL’s communications and client services manager.

“We will also support the education of persons on matters of climate change as well as adaptive and mitigation techniques available to them,” she told The Gleaner.

So far, SMEs have drawn down on J$19.5 million of the available funds to finance the installation of rainwater harvesting systems, drip irrigation systems, water recirculation systems, solar water heating system, and energy smart system.

The first loan was approved in December, following the official launch of the line of credit earlier in the year.

“JNSBL is pleased with the take up of the loan facility so far, with 51 per cent to the Tourism sector and 49 per cent to the agro sector in disbursements,” said Shaw Nicholson.

For those persons wishing to drawn down on the funds, criteria for selection include not only that they be operating a tourism or agro-related business, but also that proposed projects must enhance their capacity to cope better with the increased changes and effects of climate change.

“Collateral is required and can include machinery and equipment of trade or to be purchased, motor vehicles that can be comprehensively insured or registered titles as well as lien on deposits, guarantors are also acceptable,” revealed Shaw Nicholson.

The maximum loan amount that can be awarded is $5 million, with an interest rate of four per cent per annum on the reducing balance.

However, Shaw Nicholson said, “borrowers can also utilise other loan facilities available at JNSBL to further support project implementation where needed”.

The line of credit is one of two financing mechanisms under the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience. The other is the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCAF) that is being administered by the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ).

The SCCAF finances adaptation and disaster risk-reduction projects and cover associated programme management cost.

It is accessible by community-based organisations, other civil-society groups and select public-sector agencies specifically for “clearly defined high-priority activities, particularly related to building the resilience of the natural environment and contributing to livelihoods protection and poverty reduction”, according to project documents.

The EFJ recently awarded 18 grants to the tune of $84.9 million to undertake projects designed to boost the ability of communities to respond to climate change threats.

Counted among those threats are increased and/or more severe extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and droughts, which destroy agricultural and tourism livelihoods.

Climate change also brings warmer temperatures, which, too, have negative implications for not only human livelihoods but also marine life. This is given, as one example, the negative effects of increased sea surface temperatures on coral reefs.

It is a look at these implications that, at least in part, provides the basis of JNSBL’s decision to pursue administration of the line of credit under the PPCR.

“Increasingly, agro-related activities were experiencing negative changes in production yield, both in quality and quantity, which affected their ability to earn as per usual. We, therefore, wanted to assist with educating our clients and staff on matters of climate change and assist them to obtain the systems and techniques necessary to adequately respond to matters of climatic variability,” Shaw Nicholson said.

“JNSBL is also cognisant of the wider threat climate change poses to food security and as a part of our own mandate to support economic sustainability, JNSBL wanted to provide well needed support to the MSME sector to adequately mitigate and adapt for sustainability,” she added.

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NGOs, Small Businesses Get Funding For Climate Change Adaptation

February 10, 2017 Webmaster

Special Climate Change Adaptation Fund administrators from the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica and beneficiaries show off the cheque representing the most recent awards at the signing ceremony last Monday.

WITH A changing climate that threatens to wash away entire communities and derail livelihoods, local civil society organisations and small businesses are being empowered to respond – with capital.

This is thanks to financing made available through the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR).

There exist two financing mechanisms, according to Dr Winsome Townsend, project manager for the Adaptation Programme and Financing Mechanism under the PPCR.

One is the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCAF) that is being administered by the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica.

The SCCAF, according to project documents, is “to finance adaptation and disaster risk-reduction projects and cover associated programme management costs”.

“Grants from this trust fund will be accessed by community-based organisations, other civil-society groups and selected public-sector agencies, for clearly defined high-priority activities, particularly related to building the resilience of the natural environment and contributing to livelihoods protection and poverty reduction,” the documents revealed.

Last Monday, the first 18 beneficiary organisations were awarded sums to the tune of $84.9 million to undertake projects designed to enhance resilience at the community level.

“There was a call for proposals in October last year and out of that, about 80 proposals were received and about half that amount were shortlisted. They were further assessed and out of that, an initial 18 were approved,” said Townsend.

“Twelve were pending approval. Those 12 have now been approved. So out of that first call, approximately 30 have been approved,” she added.

PROJECTS TO BE PURSUED

Projects to be pursued include water harvesting and greenhouses, aquaponics systems and food processing, as well as various ecosystem restoration initiatives.

Townsend said another call will be issued later this month or early March.

The second mechanism is a line of credit, intended “to provide loan financing to support adaptation measures of farmers and other businesses in the agricultural sector, and small hoteliers and other businesses in the tourism sector”.

Five projects have been approved to the tune of some $25 million, Townsend said. However, the overall level of interest in the line of credit – administered by JN Small Business Loan – is not immediately clear.

“Because it has started soft, we don’t know yet. We can’t at this time make any determination as to the level of enthusiasm,” Townsend said.

Still, she is hopeful for its success, given what is at stake.

“It is not just the Government who needs to put in measures in terms of climate change adaptation, but everybody, including citizens. Of particular interest is the private sector because businesses are under threat from climate change, and so the private sector needs to respond to these threats,” she said.

“The micro, small and medium-size businesses are at greater risk because of their capacity to respond. They are not as resilient as the more established or bigger enterprises,” Townsend noted.

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Renewable Energy Target Not A Pipe Dream – Senator

February 10, 2017 Webmaster

The push to get 30 per cent of Jamaica’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 is not a pipe dream and will be achieved, Government Senator Matthew Samuda has insisted.

The senator said that energy generated currently from renewable sources is 10.5 per cent of net electricity generation.

Speaking last week in the State of the Nation Debate in the Senate, Samuda noted that energy minister Dr Andrew Wheatley, upon taking over the portfolio last year, increased the 2030 target in the national energy policy to 30 per cent from 20 per cent.

GDP Growth

According to Samuda, the target “certainly complements the top line objective of 5 in 4”, referring to the Government’s objective of achieving a GDP growth of five per cent by the end of the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

“This (energy target) is not a pipe dream, nor is this lip service being paid to the nation’s energy supply. I am happy to state here today in this chamber that Jamaica will target a further 100 megawatt (MW) of renewable energy for the grid, with a new invitation for proposals to be made public in the very, very near future.”

Added Samuda: “This project will have a transformative effect on the sector, and indeed, the country. These projects will, no doubt, strengthen a pillar for competitiveness and development, which is cheap, reliable, and clean energy.”

Last year, an additional 80MW of generating capacity from renewable sources was connected to the national grid, Samuda noted.

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CSEF 2017: Call To Action For CARICOM Energy Players

February 3, 2017 Webmaster

WITH ECONOMIES under threat due to climate change and prevailing high production costs, the recent Caribbean Sustainable Energy Forum (CSEF) served as a call to urgent action to realise energy efficiency and energy sustainability within CARICOM.

Kim Osborne of the Executive Secretariat for Integral Development at the Organisation of American States, said it is past time that talk be translated into action.

“There is always the challenge of maintaining a healthy balance between dialogue and implementation. Several studies and reports have noted that our region faces an ‘implementation deficit’, but I would venture to say that the region also suffers from a ‘dialogue surplus’,” she noted.

She was addressing participants at the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Forum (CSEF), held in The Bahamas last week.

“There is a serious mismatch between meetings and results in our region. My point here is twofold: that dialogue is not an end to itself, and that dialogue that does not lead to action and to results is meaningless,” Osborne added.

At the same time, she said that energy must not be looked at in isolation, but rather in the context of sustainable development.

“In the normal course of things, energy is not provided in a vacuum. It impacts and is impacted by several factors, such as poverty, water availability, disaster risk, climate change, health, education and human resource development, human rights, and coastal and marine management,” Osborne said.

“I am proposing that to the fullest extent possible, an integrated approach should be adopted towards the goal of sustainable energy management,” she added.

For his part, Dr Devon Gardner, programme manager for energy with the CARICOM Secretariat, emphasised three things – partnership, integration and action.

“The partnerships are not just for the CSEF, but with the World Bank and the United States Government, we are able to implement the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Road Map ad Strategy (C-SERMS) platform … . Because of partnerships, we have been able to work with the member states,” he said.

UNITY MAKES SENSE

On integration, he noted: “The CARICOM secretariat is really there to serve the member states. We do what the member states require to get the job done. The CARICOM is a group of countries within the Caribbean that we want to do some things together because it makes sense for us to work together to achieve mutual and shared objectives. And the role of the secretariat is to help the member states to realise this objective.”

Added Gardner: “We believe that all that CARICOM desires – from economic development to climate resilience to social resilience to security – is underpinned by having a strong energy sector … . We see energy as a critical part of the regional integration tool.”

In the end, Gardner said there was no question of realising C-SERMS energy targets that include 47 per cent renewable power capacity by 2027 without urgent action.

A number of regional leaders – among them Dr Regilio Dodson, Minister of Natural Resources in Suriname – have noted their support for an integrated and unified approach to the energy efficiency and sustainability in the region.

“We should work together … . We have to actively promote success stories … and learn from each other and go together and try to determine what is for our region the best way forward,” he said.

“If we work together to get this going and get the cooperation between CARICOM countries going, then we will have our energy security in our own hands, ” he added.

Among the topics explored over the three days of discussions at CSEF 2017 were ‘The CARICOM Energy Policy Road Map and Strategy: Shifting the C-SERMS from Concept to Action’; ‘The Regulator Within the Integrated Resource Planning Process’; and ‘The CARICOM Energy Transition: Lessons from the Last Five Years’.

The forum also saw the meeting of regional working groups on key thematic areas, including information and knowledge management, finance, capacity building and research, as well as policy and regulations.

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Energy Ministry Now Responsible For Net Billing, Wheeling

January 4, 2017 Webmaster

As of January 1, 2017 the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology took over responsibility for applications for net billing, electric power wheeling and auxiliary connections.

Information about the new arrangements, posted on the ministry website, comes after a period of uncertainty characterised by legislative changes, delays and temporary arrangements.

Minister of Science, Energy and Technology

Dr Andrew Wheatley announced in April 2016 that the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) would resume accepting applications on behalf of the ministry for net billing. This would be under similar terms as the previously concluded net billing pilot project, which ran for two years until May 2015. Up to that time, the ministry had received 351 applications for net billing, of which 311 were approved.

Net billing allows persons who produce electricity from renewable sources such as wind or solar to sell the excess to the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), thus offsetting the electricity consumed when they use power from the grid. The OUR was charged with the responsibility for continuing to accept applications until the details of a permanent programme were finalised.

Public education specialist at the OUR, Elizabeth Bennett Marsh, says that with changes to some aspects of the legislation, the responsibility for approving net billing was passed back to the ministry.

“There was a brief hiatus where we had stopped accepting because we said we really wanted to get everything clarified. The ministry subsequently asked the OUR to continue accepting applications. So we agreed to continue until they could sort it out, and now that it has been completed we handed over,” Bennett Marsh said.

According to the information on the ministry”s website, “All persons who are desirous of connecting to the Jamaica Public Service grid are required to obtain a licence from the minister with responsibility for energy. The Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology, therefore, advises the public that, effective January 1, 2017, all applications for net billing, electric power wheeling and auxiliary connections are to be made directly to the ministry.”

READY TO DO ITS PART

The ministry declined to comment by telephone on the new requirement and did not respond to emailed questions up to press time.

JPS Director of Corporate Communications Winsome Callum said the light and power company was aware of the changes and stood ready to do its part in adding new systems to the grid.

“This new development came out of the review of the net billing process in 2015. It was decided that the ministry would start accepting applications as of January 2017.

“JPS will continue its role in facilitating the contracts and the commissioning of the systems. We will continue our efforts to ensure that the connections are made as seamlessly and as quickly as possible,” Callum said in a written response.

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