Electric power industry Archives - Page 4 of 6

JPS, ATL partner on energy-saving retail products

May 22, 2013 Webmaster

THE Jamaica Public Service (JPS) and appliance giants Appliance Traders Limited (ATL) have partnered to provide energy-saving products and services to customers.

The partnership, which was sealed in a Memorandum of Understanding yesterday, will see ATL extending its distribution of alternative and energy-efficient products through the JPS’s eStore.

ATL Group CEO and Deputy Chairman Adam Stewart presents President and CEO of the JPS Kelly Tomblin with a bag of goodies at the signing ceremony yesterday. (PHOTO: ASTON SPAULDING)

JPS customers will also benefit from a wider range of cost-cutting products as well as technical and consultative services through ATL’s Energy Solutions arm.

“I think it demonstrates a genuine intent by JPS to want to show Jamaicans how to reduce their energy bill,” group CEO Adam Stewart said, describing the move as “uncharacteristic” of a power company.

The leadership of this company (JPS) has made it clear that they want their consumers’ bills to go down, Stewart reasoned, noting the similarities in both companies mandate to promote energy conservation and efficiency.

For JPS chief executive officer, Kelly Tomblin, “this is an example of two companies coming together and saying we can provide help and not in three years, but today.”

She said though the planned construction of the 360 megawatt (MV) plant will aid the reduction of the nation’s energy woes, “educating and empowering customers to responsibly manage their energy use today will go a far way to solving the country’s energy challenges.

“We can understand the insanity of a company who wants to sell products to its clients that will ultimately drive down our sales, and people ask me if I’m crazy,” the JPS head said.

She noted, however, that her 25 years in the energy sector had inspired her conclusion that “if we do the right thing, if we train people the right way, economic development happens (and) the world grows.”

While noting the susceptibility of the JPS to shifts in the economy, Tomblin said the company hoped the partnership would be viewed as “our next step in redefining who we want to be in our hearts and in our delivery”.

ATL made its expansion into the alternative energy business with the launch of its Energy Solutions store earlier this year.

“Record energy prices in Jamaica as well as in the international marketplace have heightened the need for sustainable alternatives,” ATL’s energy and engineering manager, Paul Grey said.

An expansion into the energy business was therefore a “natural progression” for the company, Grey reckoned.

“We are at a transformational period in the Jamaican energy sector that requires us to either heavily curb our existing consumption patterns or look to alternative sources of power,” he suggested.

For Stewart, “What we find is that the average consumer doesn’t understand the appliances in their homes that consume the most power.

“So what we find lacking is the key words

JPS News

Set Inner-City Electricity Rate

May 21, 2013 jrobinson

THE EDITOR, Sir:

The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) is losing more than U$30 million each year to electricity theft. In recent months, the company has been desperately trying to remove illegal connections islandwide. But as soon as the JPS van drives off and turns the corner, the wires go back up again!

Unfortunately, the burden of stemming this theft has been left up to the power company. But this should really be a problem for our police, as JPS is in the business of electricity production, not law enforcement. However, there is obviously a lack of political will to tackle the problem head-on.

Honestly, there is no way many of these people can pay the actual cost of electricity. And the prime minister is particularly concerned about the plight of the nation’s poor. So, why not have an interim inner-city electricity rate? This could be a fraction of the actual cost.

Many will scoff at this idea. But collecting something is a lot better than collecting nothing. It would be a win-win-win:

The Government would save face with the ‘poor’.

Paying customers would pay less.

JPS’s 14 per cent loss to theft would be cut.

One thing is certain: the

JPS News

JPS could face US$430-m payout for breach

April 15, 2013 Webmaster

THE viability of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has been questioned, with the light and power company in breach of loan covenants that could see creditors demanding immediate repayment of up to US$430 million ($42.4 billion).

It’s a financial situation that has led to JPS Chief Executive Kelly Tomlin volunteering to a 10 per cent pay cut, as the company works with lenders and shareholders on a short-term solution, and talks with the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) about new tariff guidelines.

TOMLIN… our goal is to electrify 100 per cent of Jamaica.

“Given the macroeconomics that we are facing and given the regulatory environment, our lenders are now saying that they don’t believe they can give us any further waivers,” Tomlin told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

Auditors noted in JPS’s annual financial statements that the company has, since March 2012 — a month before Tomlin’s appointment — not been compliant with a condition included in long-term loan agreements with international development financial institutions, requiring the firm to maintain a 3:1 Debt to Earnings before Interest Tax Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) ratio.

The violation provides the lenders with the option of issuing notices of default and declaring all principal and interest amounting to US$430 million, as at December 31, 2012, as immediately payable, stated the auditor’s notesaccompanying the power company’s 2012 financial results.

Should the respective lenders exercise their right to demand the repayment of this amount, it would cast significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern, without the support of the shareholders or other third parties, the statement said.

Tomlin said yesterday that the company is in talks with creditors for an extension of the waivers while it works with the OUR and shareholders.

JPS in its annual tariff submission to the OUR blamed the breach on “significant under-recovery of fuel costs” experienced in 2011 and 2012, including more than US$30 million last year alone. Against this background, the firm said its “continued viability… will be dependent on a change to the regulatory approach in relation to the recovery of fuel costs.”

A quarter of the electricity that JPS transmits is lost to heat and theft, with the majority due to the latter. JPS contends that the challenge of substantially reducing leakages is socio-economic and largely outside of its control. In its submission to the OUR, JPS urged “regulatory acceptance of that fact” and called for a more holistic approach to combat electricity theft, including social intervention projects.

JPS is asking the OUR to allow the full pass-through of fuel costs on light bills as of the effective billing date of the Annual Adjustment Determination — July 1, 2013. The company said it is essential to ensuring the viability of the utility, given the context that in a typical year, its return on profit “is not likely to be more than two to three per cent of the total cost of electricity, against the background of what it deems as unfair penalties as they relate to the recovery of fuel costs.

The company noted that the losses penalty increases as sales shrink, given that the losses are calculated as a percentage of sales, and increases as the price of oil goes up. JPS reported a 63 per cent decline in annual net profit to US$12.9 million on flat sales last year.

The fuel penalty actually represented four per cent of the cost of fuel, thereby virtually eliminating all of the operating profit of the utility in 2012, the company said in its submission.

According to the light and power company, if approved, this measure would result in “a marginal increase in the average residential customer’s bill of less than 0.5 per cent or $16 per month”.

JPS suggests that customers stand to benefit substantially over the medium term, through a vibrant and viable JPS that can support generation expansion to significantly lower cost and invest in the network to improve service and reliability.

The successful implementation of a sustainable loss reduction programme, aimed at regularising 10,000 – 15,000 households per annum, will ultimately also result in a substantial reduction in the cost of electricity for all, said the company in its submission.

“The problem is everybody is willing to help if they see light at the end of the tunnel, but with this particular regulatory framework, there can be no light at the end of the tunnel because we seriously do not know how to stop crime, and that’s what we are being asked to do,” Tomlin said yesterday.

“We are giving power to everybody; that’s our goal, to electrify 100 per cent of Jamaica, but we all know 100 per cent of Jamaica cannot afford electricity,” she argued.

Meanwhile, Tomlin said that the company has independently executed a number of cost-cutting measures in the face of severe budget constraints.

“Customers don’t want us to reduce our capital budgets, or else you will experience more and more outages. But we have had redundancies and we are doing what we can,” Tomlin said, revealing that, in addition to her 10 per cent pay cut, other executives have volunteered to give up their vacation.

“We are asking everybody to give,” she said. “Unfortunately, our charitable contributions have also been severely slashed.”

Electricity JPS News

JPS promises lower April bills

April 12, 2013 Webmaster

THE Jamaica Public Service (JPS) says its customers will see a five per cent decrease in their electricity bill this month, despite the continued devaluation of the Jamaican currency.

This decrease, the light and power company said last night, is due to a reduction in the cost of the fuel used to generate electricity.

“Each month, the fuel charge on electricity bills changes, depending on the cost of the oil that JPS and other power-generating companies buy to produce electricity,” JPS said.

“The fuel & IPP cost on bills for April is $24.35 per kWh, compared to the charge of $26.54 per kWh applied to March bills.

“This means that a residential customer who consistently uses 200 kWh will be paying about $400 less for his/her bill this month, compared to what he paid last month. This customer will pay $7,518 for the 200 kWh of electricity used, as against the $7,918.55 that was paid in March for the same usage,” the company said.

The JPS, however, urged customers to continue their conservation efforts as the final bill amount will depend on total electricity used.

JPS

JPS Enters Retail Market Selling Customers Products To Cut Energy Cost

April 8, 2013 jrobinson

Kelly Tomblin officially opens the company’s first eStore, which sells devices to help monitor, protect and conserve energy.

Sacha Walters-Gregory, Staff Reporter

National power supplier, Jamaica Public Service (JPS), is relinquishing power to its customers by venturing into retail, with its new e-Store which sells devices designed to cut customers’ energy costs.

“It’s really to put knowledge and information in our customers’ hands. As you look at our products you’ll see that a lot of our products are designed to do just that,” said Kelly Tomblin, president and CEO of JPS, at the official opening of the first store last Thursday.

The power company, often dogged by customers’ complaints of high energy costs, is selling devices to save energy, protect electrical equipment and monitor electricity usage, which will ultimately allow consumers to reduce energy consumption.

Located at the power company’s Ruthven Road Customer Service Office, at 23 Ruthven Road, St Andrew, the store is one of four stores to be opened this year.

“The products really help our customers to say, this costs me that and unfortunately when you get a bill at the end of the month for activity done throughout that month there’s nothing you can do about it at that time, but we’re going to give them information along the way so they can afford that energy bill and then after that we’re going to talk about how you decrease your usage,” said Tomblin. She further explained that energy conservation needs to be more relevant to customers.

REAL CONSERVATION

“The reason we believe that these kind of products and stores are necessary is that we’re finding although we give conservation a lot of lip service we haven’t got passionate about it. I think it’s because we haven’t made it real, conservation and show a bill before and after. So we’re hoping that along with the government we can lead the way to show real decreases in energy prices,” she said.

One of the products available in the store is the Digital Energy Timer, invented locally, which can be attached to a variety of electrical devices, allowing owners to automatically turn these devices off when not in use by way of a timer or by way of the Internet. It can be applied on a small scale in homes or larger scale in businesses. According to a release from the company, “the timer, which also comes with an energy meter that measures power consumed, can be installed at distribution panels, electrical enclosures and specific zone areas and is particularly useful in determining energy usage of one section of a factory or a tenant in a rental situation. ”

Other products include LED lights which can reduce energy costs by approximately $3,000 per bulb per year; an Energy Saving Kit ($2,900 including GCT), which includes a low-flow shower head that allows you to use 0.5 less gallons of water, a timer to alert you when you’ve reached the optimal time for a shower, a sensored night light and three energy-efficient bulbs and surge protector devices.

Customers can also access the devices available at the eStore, at JPS branches islandwide.

sacha.walters@gleanerjm.com)

JPS News

JPS to

March 22, 2013 jrobinson

JAMAICA Public Service Company (JPS) will next month begin to roll out retail stores that will sell energy-saving products.

The light and power company says the initiative will kick-start a more ’empowering’ engagement with its customers going forward.

Nicolette Hind shows off some of the eStore products during a promotion.

“It’s actually the first time we are venturing into anything like this. We always supported and encouraged; what we are doing now is investing in empowerment, so we are going further,” Winsome Callum, JPS’s head of corporate communications, told Caribbean Business Report during an exclusive interview at the firm’s Ruthven Road, Kingston, outlet on Wednesday.

The new retail stores, branded “eStore”, will be located inside existing JPS customer service offices, with the first store scheduled to be opened on April 4 at the Ruthven Road outlet.

JPS will initially offer up to 40 different energy-savings products, including a variety of power efficient gadgets, timers and sensors, said the company’s director of sales and marketing, Garth McKenzie.

“Our products will fall into three major categories: equipment that will save energy, equipment that will protect your investment and equipment that will help you to understand your usages,” said McKenzie, noting that the company is targeting both the residential and corporate markets.

JPS has partnered with a number of overseas and local suppliers, including Nicorp Limited and its brand of surge protectors.

While items will be on sale, the stores will primarily focus on teaching consumers about energy consumption and how to save, McKenzie said.

“We will be consumed with looking for those things that can help people to change their habits and improve their energy efficiency. Energy efficiency has to be more than just wishing it; it needs some education, tools and gadgets,” said the sales and marketing executive.

JPS, which has 15 offices islandwide, will officially launch up to four ‘eStores’ before the end of the year, but will be offering the new services at all the locations. The company did not disclose how much money was being invested in the venture.

“We will be dressing up about two or three more locations (after Ruthven Road) by the end of the year. For the other dozen or so that won’t be dressed up, we will be branding the space to let people know that there is an eStore operation there,” McKenzie said.

JPS, for years, has had an uneasy relationship with the Jamaican public, who have become increasingly frustrated with high electricity bills and accuse the company of being rapacious. The relationship hit a low point two years ago when a wide cross-section of Jamaicans, including a government senator and an Opposition member of parliament at the time, joined a social network campaign and wore black in protest against exorbitant electricity bills from the energy provider.

McKenzie said the ‘eStore’ initiative is aimed at improving the company’s relationship with customers.

“We recognise that the value that JPS is giving is not matching up with the cost and this is an attempt to improve that value proposition,” McKenzie said.

“What people are unhappy with is the apparent lack of control that they have over their electricity bills,” he continued. “We are a business so we expect to earn money, but more importantly we need to have customers that are more empowered so that they are less disgruntled.”

JPS announced earlier this week that customers will see a 10 per cent hike in their electricity bills this month, largely due to higher fuel costs and the depreciation of the Jamaica dollar.

Against this background, Callum noted that different macroeconomic factors have made it now even more critical for Jamaicans to focus on energy savings. JPS wants to help consumers realise this goal, she said.

“People say they have tried conservation and they don’t see the results, so we want to help them to actually see results,” Callum noted.

Alternative Energy JPS News

JPS begins work for Maggoty power plant

December 7, 2012 Webmaster

The Jamaica Public Service Company, JPS, says preparatory work has started on the construction of the second Maggotty Hydroelectric Power Plant.

The plant is expected to add six megawatts to the national grid upon completion in November next year.

A statement from the power company says 30 jobs have so far been created with this number expected to increase as the project continues.

JPS has committed US$33 million to the building of the new plant

JPS News

JPS staff to ‘walk the line’

November 14, 2012 jrobinson

OFFICE staff at the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) are to be trained to “walk the lines” so they can help the next time a storm or hurricane hits the

JPS News

JPS to start campaign on vegetation control

November 14, 2012 Webmaster

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.

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.

JPS News

JPS to be lenient with customers in hurricane-battered parishes

November 13, 2012 Webmaster

THE Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) says that it is prepared to grant some leniency to its customers, particularly those in Portland, St Thomas and St Mary, who are struggling to recover from the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

The move apparently forms part of efforts by the company to improve its customer service, for which it has received harsh criticisms over the years.

JPS customers in areas like this in Eastern Jamaica which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy last month will benefit from some leniency with bill payments from the light and power company.

Since her arrival in Jamaica earlier this year, the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer Kelly Tomblin made it clear that she intends to reposition JPS by paying attention to its customer service flaws, as she focuses on the company’s bottom line.

Tomblin, who was a guest at yesterday’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange, disclosed that instructions have already been given for its parish managers and customer service personnel, particularly in the hard hit areas, to exercise discretion and to work with customers who may not be able to settle their bills in one payment.

“This is an important part of JPS that I am committed to. Our customer service personnel and professionals have some parameters, especially around St Mary, St Thomas that really it has to be on a case-by-case scenario. I have also said to my team, people are going to have hard times, because not only have they lost power, they have lost a lot more and to work with them, we are going to have some discretion to make sure we don’t overburden them,” said the JPS CEO, even as she made it clear that the company will still have to honour its debt obligations to its suppliers, particularly state-owned oil refinery Petrojam from which it purchases fuel.

Tomblin’s pronouncement came less than 24 hours after the company announced that about 20 per cent, or approximately 123,000 customers, would be receiving estimated bills for October as a result of the disruption in its meter-reading schedule.

“JPS 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,” explained Winsome Callum, JPS’s head of corporate communications, who was also a guest at the Monday Exchange.

“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,” Callum added.

Checks by the Jamaica Observer have revealed that the affected customers could actually see an initial increase in their bills as the three-month average will include consumption for the months of July and August which are normally characterised by higher energy consumption.

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