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Tag: Winsome Callum

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Energy Ministry Now Responsible For Net Billing, Wheeling

January 4, 2017

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.

Gleaner

Electricity Government JPS News

Protection Failure – JPS Says System Flaw Caused Islandwide Blackout

August 30, 2016

Early indications from the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) have pointed to a breakdown in its protection systems as the most likely cause of the islandwide power outage that occurred over the weekend.

While the company has said that more fulsome investigations into the issue will take time, it has confirmed that the outage was triggered during scheduled maintenance work at the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ) substation in Kingston.

“The scheduled work was part of ongoing system improvements being done by JPS to our power delivery (transmission and distribution) network,” Winsome Callum, director of corporate communications at the power company, said in an emailed response to The Gleaner.

Breakdown In Operating Procedures

According to Callum, initial investigations have revealed that there was a breakdown in the implementation of the established operating procedures for the work being done. This, she said, triggered a system fault that led to the outage.

“Preliminary indications are that the first level of the protection system did not operate as expected. As a result, several units at our power plants went offline. The network, in turn, shut down to protect itself from possible damage,” she said in explaining the failure on the protection system.

The protection system is a built-in mechanism on the national grid which is designed to safeguard against procedural errors.

“The protection system is designed to operate at different levels, ranging from isolating areas with a fault all the way up to the ultimate protection being to shut the entire electricity network down in the event of a major system fault,” the power company said.

The electricity supplier has indicated that in the coming days, its investigations will be focused on evaluating why the protection mechanism did not operate as expected.

The power company said it has already taken corrective measures and will be investing in system upgrades to create what it describes as a self-healing grid.

In the meantime, the Office of Utilities Regulation will today meet with executives of the JPS to discuss details of the ongoing investigations into the power outage.

The utility regulator wrote to the company yesterday requesting a preliminary report into the incident.

Callum confirmed that Energy Minister Dr Andrew Wheatley was provided with a preliminary overview on the outage and was to receive an initial report yesterday.

Gleaner

Electricity Government JPS News

Protection Failure – JPS Says System Flaw Caused Islandwide Blackout

August 30, 2016

Winsome Callum

Early indications from the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) have pointed to a breakdown in its protection systems as the most likely cause of the islandwide power outage that occurred over the weekend.

While the company has said that more fulsome investigations into the issue will take time, it has confirmed that the outage was triggered during scheduled maintenance work at the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ) substation in Kingston.

“The scheduled work was part of ongoing system improvements being done by JPS to our power delivery (transmission and distribution) network,” Winsome Callum, director of corporate communications at the power company, said in an emailed response to The Gleaner.

 

Breakdown In Operating Procedures

 

According to Callum, initial investigations have revealed that there was a breakdown in the implementation of the established operating procedures for the work being done. This, she said, triggered a system fault that led to the outage.

“Preliminary indications are that the first level of the protection system did not operate as expected. As a result, several units at our power plants went offline. The network, in turn, shut down to protect itself from possible damage,” she said in explaining the failure on the protection system.

The protection system is a built-in mechanism on the national grid which is designed to safeguard against procedural errors.

“The protection system is designed to operate at different levels, ranging from isolating areas with a fault all the way up to the ultimate protection being to shut the entire electricity network down in the event of a major system fault,” the power company said.

The electricity supplier has indicated that in the coming days, its investigations will be focused on evaluating why the protection mechanism did not operate as expected.

The power company said it has already taken corrective measures and will be investing in system upgrades to create what it describes as a self-healing grid.

In the meantime, the Office of Utilities Regulation will today meet with executives of the JPS to discuss details of the ongoing investigations into the power outage.

The utility regulator wrote to the company yesterday requesting a preliminary report into the incident.

Callum confirmed that Energy Minister Dr Andrew Wheatley was provided with a preliminary overview on the outage and was to receive an initial report yesterday.

andre.poyser@gleanerjm.com

The Gleaner

Government JPS News Oil

OUR-Approved JPS Rate Hike Hits Home August

July 7, 2016

Winsome Callum: Company officials had only “just” received the determination notice and were going through it.

Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) customers will see an increase in their August electricity bills as a result of the average 2.6 per cent rate increase the Office of Utilities Regulation yesterday (OUR) announced it had granted the energy company.

Rate-10 customers (small residential) will see on average a 2.4-per-cent increase, the same as Rate-20 (small commercial) customers.

For Rate-40 customers (medium commercial/industrial), the increase is 2.9 per cent, and 3.2 per cent for Rate 50 (large commercial/industrial) customers.

This means that a Rate-10 customer using 349 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month for which he or she paid $9,583.48 before April, is likely to see that bill going up by about $231.90 to $9,815.38, reflecting a 2.42 per cent increase.

Contacted for comment, Winsome Callum, director of corporate communications at the JPS, advised that company officials had only “just” received the determination notice and were going through it and so could not comment in detail on the matter.

This first rate increase granted by the OUR in more than three years comes on the heels of a 12.8 per cent increase in electricity charges announced by the JPS less than a month ago, on June 13, and which it linked to the tax package announced by Finance Minister Audley Shaw in his Budget presentation on May 12.

The JPS justified the rate hike at the time to the following combination of factors:

• An increase in the cost of the fuel used for electricity generation because of rising oil prices on the international market;

• The impact of the recent increase in the special consumption tax charged on heavy fuel oil;

•  Continued devaluation of the Jamaican dollar.

In its release, the OUR explained that in arriving at its decision, it had taken the following factors into consideration:

a) A 9.53 per cent increase in the non-fuel revenue cap over the starting cap of 2014;

b) The full pass-through of system losses in the fuel rate as is now required by the new electricity licence;

c) The introduction of a revised incentive scheme for system-loss reduction, and based upon non-fuel revenues rather than fuel revenues, in keeping with the terms of the new licence;

d) A 50 per cent reduction in the Electricity Efficiency Improvement Fund (EEIF) tariff contribution;

e) The adjustment of rates to be charged for prepaid residential customers; and,

f) The adjustment of rates to be charged to some customers who will benefit under the Community Renewal Programme.

christopher.serju@gleanerjm.com

The Gleaner

Electricity Government JPS News

Blackout – Widespread Outage Leaves Thousands In The Dark

April 18, 2016

Winsome Callum

 

Up to late last night, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) was yet to determine what caused a “fairly widespread” power outage that left tens of thousands in darkness.

Reports of the outage began to emerge shortly after seven o’clock from Manchester, Hanover, St Mary, Kingston, St Andrew, Portland, St Catherine, Trelawny, St James, Clarendon, and Westmoreland.

The JPS issued a statement almost an hour later, from its Twitter account, advising that “the problem seems to be fairly widespread as customers in several parishes have been affected”.

It added: “We are not able at this point to say what caused the problem or how soon we’ll have everybody back on, but power has already been restored to some areas.”

Winsome Callum, director, corporate communications at JPS, later explained that “a number of generating units went offline simultaneously, resulting in a fairly widespread outage affecting customers in several parishes.

“We are not able at this point to say what caused the units to go offline or how soon we’ll have everyone back,” she added.

Callum explained that the restoration “could take a while because of the pretty involved process of ramping up units before energising the lines”.

Meanwhile, Energy Minister Dr Andrew Wheatley said he had been in contact with the Kelly Tomblin, president and chief executive of JPS, about the situation.

“I’m sure that I will be getting a report on the matter,” Wheatley told The Gleaner.

Last month, the light and power company advised that customers could experience outages between April and May as the company moves to convert its operations at the Bogue power station in St James to natural gas.

 

The Gleaner

JPS

Customers To Receive Estimated Oct Bills – JPS

November 12, 2012

The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has said that some 123,000 customers will receive estimated bills for October.

The company said this was due mainly to the disruption in the company’s meter-reading schedule caused by Hurricane Sandy. The JPS said it 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.

However, yesterday the company was unable to state the communities that would be getting these bills.

“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,” explained Winsome Callum, JPS head of corporate communication.

Callum said in the event that a customer’s usage is overestimated, this will be reflected in the next meter reading. She said based on the reading, any necessary adjustment will be made to the customer’s next bill to reflect his or her actual usage.

The JPS says customers who have concerns about their bills are asked to contact customer care centre at 1-888-225-5577 (LIME) or 1-888-935-5577 (Digicel), or visit their nearest customer service office and speak with a representative.

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