Scotiabank‘s energy loan customers can now determine potential loan payments, based on consumption, online.
The financial institution launched its innovative SmartEnergy Calculator on Thursday at its Constant Spring Financial Centre. The nifty energy loan calculator complements the Bank‘s SmartEnergy Loan available to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and householders to fund energy efficiency projects that will help the environment and cut energy costs.
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(From left) Kelly Tomblin, CEO of Jamaica Public Service Company; Wayne Powell, executive vice-president retail, Scotiabank; Dr Kirk Abbott, managing director of New Leaf Energy and Phoebe Buchanan, manager of Scotiabank
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. Read more:
INVESTORS wanting to build out renewable energy capacity in the latest round of investments in Jamaica will have to do so by early 2015. Up to 115 megawatts (MW) are up for grabs.
Those who are interested to make bids will have to declare that to the Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR) by December 21. But the request for proposal documents has set tariff caps, which could make investments in certain types of renewables lucrative, but could also mean higher electricity prices to consumers. What’s more, even with the seemingly fast pace at which the regulator is pushing for renewables to come online
INVESTORS wanting to build out renewable energy capacity in the latest round of investments in Jamaica will have to do so by early 2015. Up to 115 megawatts (MW) are up for grabs.
Those who are interested to make bids will have to declare that to the Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR) by December 21. But the request for proposal documents has set tariff caps, which could make investments in certain types of renewables lucrative, but could also mean higher electricity prices to consumers. What’s more, even with the seemingly fast pace at which the regulator is pushing for renewables to come online
On Tuesday October 2, 2012, Energy Minister Philip Paulwell, included in his statement to Parliament: “………….. there is no delicate way to repeat this: Jamaica will not move forward with electricity rates of 40 US cents per kilowatt hour. For us to achieve competitiveness in the global economy, we must reduce this burden on our manufacturers, our businesses and our people.
Mr. Speaker, it is my goal to oversee the reduction of electricity costs in Jamaica, to between 15 and 18 cents per kilowatt hour, a rate that will allow Jamaicans to build industry, create jobs, and be competitive………” The Minister is spot on. He was successful in reducing prices in the telecom sector. Can he do it again? Very high energy prices, driven by rising oil prices, will irretrievably destroy the economy of Jamaica. Excessive energy rates will kill production, reduce job opportunities and contribute to security issues. Foreign investment can only thrive in a stable and predictable cost climate. Jamaica must find a sustainable methodology reduce energy expense by half. Note, too, that since GDP calculation includes the balance of trade, the more imports exceed exports the lower the GDP. If a significant quantity of fuel is removed from the trade deficit then GDP increases and perhaps, without lifting a straw, Jamaica could show increased positive growth. Electricity generation employs machinery to convert a fuel to electricity. Given the volatility of the already high oil based fuel prices and the increasing difficulty in mining oil, the answer cannot be found in fossil fuels. The alternative, among known technologies, includes nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal or ocean surface waves. Jamaica may not have the proven potential to utilize any of these technologies in the near or short term to produce a sustainable electricity supply and the quick, simple solution is to import electricity from across the sea. A power solution that is gaining global popularity is linkage by undersea electrical cable and tapping into natural resources of other countries. This technology has been in use for decades. Existing undersea cables include Germany-Sweden 260 km (160 mi); in Australia, Victoria to Tasmania 290km (180 mi); England to Netherlands 260km (160 mi); France to England; Eastonia to Finland; Italy to Greece; Japan to Japanese Islands; Denmark to Germany and Sweden and the NorNed cable connecting Norway to Netherlands 580 km (360 mi). Noteworthy projects presently being studied include a 1,000 km 2,000 MW cable, in up to 2,000 meters water connecting Asia and Europe (Israel-Cyprus-Greece); Spain to France; Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands; India to Sri Lanka; Norway to Germany 1,400 MW by 2018 and UK to Iceland. (Iceland produces about 30 per cent of the world’s geothermal energy.) There is an obvious plan to link Europe’s electricity supplies to UK, North Africa and Iceland.and create and electrical “supergrid” to increase competitiveness and reduce prices. A similar approach exists in our region. In 1996 SIEPAC (Spanish for Central American Electrical Interconnection System) initiated an Interconnection Treaty signed by Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Guatemala is already linked to Mexico and Colombia is linking to Panama – effectively interconnecting North and South America through Central America. (Mexico, Central America, and Colombia possess massive existing and potential hydro and geothermal energy. Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and El Salvador together produce over one-half the world’s geothermal energy. Colombia’s energy cost 9.75 cents per kWh compared to over 40-cents in Jamaica.) This region could have its own “supergrid” through connection from Mexico to Cuba to Florida and Cuba to Jamaica to Hispaniola to the Lesser Antilles to Venezuela and to the SIEPAC network. Clearly, if at all possible, Jamaica’s solution is to interconnect with Latin America. A direct link from Colombia to Hispaniola is about 620 km (385 mi), to which Jamaica could connect through Haiti, has been studied but may not be feasible because of the water depth (over 3,000m). Another option would be to connect at Honduras or Nicaragua just over 650 km (400 mi) to the south-west with water depth no more than 460m (1200 ft). This is similar to the NorNed cable (currently the longest in the world) which measures 580m and is in 410 metres of water. The NorNed business case (capacity 700 MW and completed cost US$800 million in 2007 – not far from what Jamaica spends on oil annually) expected annual income of $85-million. If one projects Jamaica electrical demand at 6-billion kWh, estimates the Jamaica cable cost to US$1-billion with expected income of $120-million, this equates to about 2-cents per kWh to bring power to Jamaica via the sea. An additional benefit is that the Latin American power is largely renewable or clean energy. Given electricity costs in Latin America, power landed in Jamaica would be about 12-cents. One must add local costs for transmission, distribution and supply and, of course, a cost for JPS to keep their equipment in readiness in case of a cable failure. So, you see, one may not have to think too far out of the box (only 400 miles to the south west) to find a plausible solution to cut our electricity energy spending in half. Robert Evans is an Engineer. Read more:
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.
“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. Read more:
ELECTRICITY theft continues to hit the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) hard, amounting to US$32 million so far this year. In fact, so pervasive has been the illegal activity that the company is acknowledging that it is running out of options to stem it. “It’s at a high rate, and I see it increasing, simply because as electricity rates increase… We have run out of options, we have just run out of options,” Kelly Tomblin, JPS’s president and CEO told the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange yesterday.
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