Jamaica is to be darkness-free by 2017. Well, almost free of darkness, according to Phillip Paulwell, the energy minister who says the Government is prepared to use solar energy to power houses in remote rural areas that are not currently connected to the grid.
“We expect that, by 2017, some 99.99 per cent of the country will be covered,” Paulwell told The Gleaner yesterday.
At present, 95 per cent of the country is covered, which Paulwell said is due in the main to the role of the Rural Electrification Programme (REP) established in the 1970s.
“We believe that we are in sight of completing the work of REP, based on what we have left to be done. I believe that sometime during this year or the first year during the new term, we will be able to say 99.99 per cent, because you could never get to 100 per cent, has access to electricity,” Paulwell said.
The Government has allocated $374.7 million in this 2015-2016 Budget for the REP to carry out its functions. The target includes the construction of 30 kilometres of pole line extensions in 10 parishes and the wiring of 1,000 houses to facilitate formal contracts with the Jamaica Public Service Company.
Paulwell told The Gleaner yesterday that, by 2017, “we should no longer have REP in the way we do now”, adding that if the Government finds it too challenging to run power lines into communities, it will use solar.
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