In 2004, Trinidad and Jamaica agreed on an arrangement that would have seen the Caribbean neighbour supplying some 1.1 million tonnes of LNG per year into Jamaica, beginning in 2009. However, the deal fell through after Trinidad pulled out, citing the unavailability of the product as a result of existing contractual arrangements and problems over the development of a new gas field they share with Venezuela.
Following reports that Trinidad made a major natural gas discovery off the island’s south-east coast, Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell was questioned in Parliament this week whether Government would step up the pressure on the twin-island republic to honour the LNG agreement. However, Paulwell indicated that discussions with Trinidad had not been very positive and reportedly said that Jamaica could be abandoning the deal as a result.
However, this has peeved the JMA, which noted that it has been advocating for years for the supply of LNG from Trinidad at preferential prices to create a level playing field for Jamaica’s manufacturing sector.
“The supply of LNG from Trinidad was a key strategy in the provision of a cheaper source of energy from the Jamaica Public Service. In light of talks that Jamaica may no longer be pursuing LNG from Trinidad, the JMA is demanding answers from the Government. Is it a done deal?” asked the JMA, noting that the group has been in discussions with three different industry ministers
RUSAL should declare a timeline for Alpart‘s reopening before the end of the year, says Phillip Paulwell.
The Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining expressed confidence that Alpart’s bauxite and alumina plant at Nain, St Elizabeth will reopen soon. He was upbeat after meeting with representatives of UC Rusal, the majority shareholders and operators of the plant, this week. Discussions with the firm are going well, with another meeting set for the near future, he said.
RUSAL should declare a timeline for Alpart‘s reopening before the end of the year, says Phillip Paulwell.
The Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining expressed confidence that Alpart’s bauxite and alumina plant at Nain, St Elizabeth will reopen soon. He was upbeat after meeting with representatives of UC Rusal, the majority shareholders and operators of the plant, this week. Discussions with the firm are going well, with another meeting set for the near future, he said.
Illegal connections to a Jamaica Public Service utility pole in Majesty Gardens, St Andrew. The light-and-power company loses millions to theft each year. – FILE
By Scarlette Gillings, Contributor
WE HAVE read with interest articles which indicate the frustration of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) with the issue of electricity theft.
The problem and its associated consequences remain a matter of grave national concern. We understand the company’s plight, and the Government, through the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), has been trying to address the problem.
The importance of regularising electricity to all citizens and the importance of access being safe and of a formal nature is an imperative of any government. The Government, having recognised the issues of safety and illegality with respect to the use of electricity in parts of Jamaica, has sought to include the regularisation of electricity in its social-intervention programmes. These have been complementary to the efforts of the JPS.
So far this year, illegal connections have amounted to US$32 million; legitimate JPS customers will pay the cost of 17 per cent of the recorded 25 per cent total system losses each year. Despite this picture of gloom, there are currently ongoing programmes that are making inroads into this problem, one being the electricity regularisation effort of the Inner City Basic Services Project (ICBSP) being implemented by JSIF.
IMPROVING ACCESS TO SERVICES
The ICBSP, which is funded by a loan from the World Bank to the GoJ, is aimed at improving access to basic services across 12 inner-city communities, and further to ensure the legitimacy of these services.
With funding of $8.3 million under ICBSP, 55 houses were wired and inspected, with 48 receiving GEI (Government Electrical Inspectorate) certification.
A survey done in October 2012 among the 48 households which participated in the electricity regularisation component of the programme showed that 68.8 per cent of households surveyed were regularised, having participated in the programme.
The households surveyed represented a range of sizes and types. Household sizes ranged from one to eight persons, with a mean of 3.6 persons per household and a median household size of three.
The total number of households that had electricity prior to the project could be as high as 47 (98 per cent). Kerosene was the next most common source of energy prior to the project, with eight households (17 per cent) using it as a main source of energy by itself or in conjunction with another main source.
SERVICE DISCONNECTED
Fifteen households (31 per cent of surveyed group) indicated that they had had their electricity service terminated for some reason prior to the project. Length of disconnection time ranged from three hours to two years.
Two-thirds of question respondents (42 per cent of all surveyed house-holds) stated that they found it hard to pay the household’s electricity bills when the bills became due.
One respondent who found bill payment difficult explained that she was not working. Thirty per cent of question respondents (nine households) found bill payment manageable; only one respondent found bill payment easy. Almost two-thirds of question respondents (63 per cent of question respondents; 40 per cent of all surveyed households) stated that they were usually able to pay their entire monthly electricity bill when it became due. It was notable, however, that the majority of customers (57 per cent) find it hard to pay their electricity bill.
Some 65.5 five per cent of the respondents suggested that they received – post-regularisation – a monthly bill of $2,500; 31 per cent were in the middle range of $2,500-$5,000. Only one person had a bill of over $5,000.
FEELING SAFER
Twenty-nine respondents said that they felt safer in their homes as a result of the service. Of the 30 survey respondents who answered the question regarding their overall satisfaction with the electrification project, 97 per cent reported that they were either satisfied or very satisfied.
The high satisfaction rating of the project (97 per cent) complemented by the high level of willingness to recommend electrification (93 per cent) as well as the recognition of safety gains from regularisation (56 per cent) will provide a buffer to the aforementioned risks.
Let us not be fooled, the success of the programme required significant investment in building social capital. A series of community engagement sessions and sensitisation efforts heightened the awareness of persons to the need for safe, reliable and formal electricity connections.
Electricity regularisation is a socio-economic issue that will require a range of strategies to achieve desired results. The success of the community of Bucknor is a small step, but a step in the right direction.
Scarlette Gillings is managing director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund, a government agency.
The customer, Gordon Lawrence of a Corporate Area address, was officially commissioned after rigorous preparation and testing of the solar system at his home, supplied and installed by Alternative Power Sources.
Any excess energy from the solar system, not used by Lawrence, will be sold to JPS.
Lawrence was one of 11 JPS customers who received net-billing licences from Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining Phillip Paulwell earlier this year. Net-billing customers will be paid the avoided cost of generation for the electricity JPS purchases, as well as up to a 15 per cent premium on that price.
JPS President and CEO Kelly Tomblin, in commenting on the landmark event, noted that the company was pleased to fulfil its mandate to accommodate customers on the grid, as part of the development of the new energy landscape in the island.
Nothing new
For his part, Lawrence said he was not new to generating his own power supply as he installed his system four years ago.
He said the process of getting on to the JPS grid – from application, to obtaining a licence, to dealing with the Office of Utilities Regulation, JPS, Alternative Power Sources and the government electrical inspector – was relatively smooth.
“The system is superior to that of a standby generator, as the changeover is seamless and silent,” he added. “It is also better than a generator in terms of cost as generators require fuel after purchase of the equipment.”
Lawrence’s current system produces roughly 10 to 15 kWh per day on average, with the surprise being that the so-called winter months from October to February have proven to be the most efficient months in terms of energy output.
JPS project manager for net billing, Volton Campbell, also recognised the advantage of Lawrence’s system.
“Unlike some solar systems that will not operate once there is no sunlight, Mr Lawrence’s system can operate when it’s cloudy, as well as at night,” Campbell said. “This is because his system also has backup batteries which are charged by the solar system.”
The energy minister, Phillip Paulwell, has taken a lot of stick from members of the advocacy group, Citizens United to Reduce Electricity (CURE), for the turn of events regarding the all-island licence granted to the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) by the People’s National Party (PNP) administration in 2001.
The criticism, including the claim that the minister has betrayed the Jamaican consumer by supporting his Government‘s decision to appeal the ruling, is fully merited. The minister, whose popularity was in the early part of its growth phase at the time, effectively ‘called down crosses’ upon himself by hailing the July 30 Supreme Court ruling of Justice Bryan Sykes as a major decision in his own bid to bring competition to the energy sector.
The lawyer for CURE, Hugh Wildman, is on record saying Minister Paulwell told him privately that the court ruling will allow him and his Government to break up the JPS monopoly on the transmission and distribution of electricity.
With that admission, Paulwell effectively cut his own tamarind switch and asked CURE to flog him senseless after the reasons for the Government’s decision to join the JPS in appealing the ruling were articulated in the House of Representatives by Attorney General Patrick Atkinson on November 6.
Gathering storm
But the wrath at Paulwell’s impression of a ‘two-side cutlass’ is threatening to relegate the real issues, concerning the court ruling, to the sidelines. Principal among those real issues is the fact that in reality, the landmark victory secured by CURE in the Supreme Court would create an unprecedented crisis in every atom of the Jamaican society.
If, as the court found, the JPS’s all-island licence was indeed invalid, and the decision should be enforced, what would happen to the company’s operations? At what point would the JPS turn off the lights, send its employees home, and call time on its business interest in Jamaica?
What would Portia Simpson Miller, her Government and the citizenry do when JPS, with justification, demanded the return of the billions of dollars invested in its business, on the premise of being a monopoly, since 2001?
How would Government deal with the fact that it now has to foot a massive bill for a licence that it granted to the utility provider to meet the country’s energy needs?
For anyone in the dark about why the attorney general was moved to advise the Government to appeal the ruling, I ask only that you think very carefully on these things.
We should agree that shutting down the sole transmitter and distributor of electricity won’t translate into lower light bills for us, the hard-up and long-suffering JPS customers. If such a ruling were handed down against a company similar to the JPS today in, say, England, where Wildman found a 1913 court ruling to strengthen his arguments in the court, I could understand and accept.
No competition here
But England today, with its 42 counties, has more than 70 companies which supply customers with electricity or a combination of electricity and gas. Shutting down one of so many providers simply allows the customer to call in npower or a Sainsbury’s Energy to supply their electricity needs. That, unfortunately, is not the reality in Jamaica.
In all this, one must sympathise with the members of CURE. Theirs is, and continues to be, a gallant effort to do something about the crippling cost of our residential and commercial electricity bills. Hugh Wildman is a ‘square-shooting
The energy minister, Phillip Paulwell, has taken a lot of stick from members of the advocacy group, Citizens United to Reduce Electricity (CURE), for the turn of events regarding the all-island licence granted to the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) by the People’s National Party (PNP) administration in 2001.
The criticism, including the claim that the minister has betrayed the Jamaican consumer by supporting his Government‘s decision to appeal the ruling, is fully merited. The minister, whose popularity was in the early part of its growth phase at the time, effectively ‘called down crosses’ upon himself by hailing the July 30 Supreme Court ruling of Justice Bryan Sykes as a major decision in his own bid to bring competition to the energy sector.
The lawyer for CURE, Hugh Wildman, is on record saying Minister Paulwell told him privately that the court ruling will allow him and his Government to break up the JPS monopoly on the transmission and distribution of electricity.
With that admission, Paulwell effectively cut his own tamarind switch and asked CURE to flog him senseless after the reasons for the Government’s decision to join the JPS in appealing the ruling were articulated in the House of Representatives by Attorney General Patrick Atkinson on November 6.
Gathering storm
But the wrath at Paulwell’s impression of a ‘two-side cutlass’ is threatening to relegate the real issues, concerning the court ruling, to the sidelines. Principal among those real issues is the fact that in reality, the landmark victory secured by CURE in the Supreme Court would create an unprecedented crisis in every atom of the Jamaican society.
If, as the court found, the JPS’s all-island licence was indeed invalid, and the decision should be enforced, what would happen to the company’s operations? At what point would the JPS turn off the lights, send its employees home, and call time on its business interest in Jamaica?
What would Portia Simpson Miller, her Government and the citizenry do when JPS, with justification, demanded the return of the billions of dollars invested in its business, on the premise of being a monopoly, since 2001?
How would Government deal with the fact that it now has to foot a massive bill for a licence that it granted to the utility provider to meet the country’s energy needs?
For anyone in the dark about why the attorney general was moved to advise the Government to appeal the ruling, I ask only that you think very carefully on these things.
We should agree that shutting down the sole transmitter and distributor of electricity won’t translate into lower light bills for us, the hard-up and long-suffering JPS customers. If such a ruling were handed down against a company similar to the JPS today in, say, England, where Wildman found a 1913 court ruling to strengthen his arguments in the court, I could understand and accept.
No competition here
But England today, with its 42 counties, has more than 70 companies which supply customers with electricity or a combination of electricity and gas. Shutting down one of so many providers simply allows the customer to call in npower or a Sainsbury’s Energy to supply their electricity needs. That, unfortunately, is not the reality in Jamaica.
In all this, one must sympathise with the members of CURE. Theirs is, and continues to be, a gallant effort to do something about the crippling cost of our residential and commercial electricity bills. Hugh Wildman is a ‘square-shooting
