Jamaica Public Service Company Limited, JPS, says it is building an electricity grid that can withstand the effect of a Category 5 hurricane should it hit the island.
JPS President and CEO Hugh Grant said following the extensive damage to the grid by last July caused by Hurricane Beryl which reached Category Four speeds, the power supplier was rebuilding a more resilient system that can withstand an even greater hit.
“Going forward, we’re designing a grid to withstand a Category Five hurricane. Currently, the grid is designed to withstand a Category Three hurricane,” Grant said last Friday, during a forum hosted by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce.
Grant was unable to give a timeline or a cost for the upgrade, saying the plan would require negotiations with stakeholders and identification of funding.
“It’s probably going to be multiple years as we go forward; in the order of several years…We have over 14,000 kilometres of distribution lines. We have over 3,000 kilometres of transmission lines. That’s a lot of infrastructure,” he said.
In creating this more resilient system, Grant said the JPS would be prioritising resiliency on selected circuits feeding key utilities systems for the greater good of the nation. These he said included the supplies to the National Water Commission and telecommunications companies Flow and Digicel.
Grant said in the advent of climate change, the company was preparing itself for even more frequent, extreme, and unpredictable weather events of longer duration.
He said despite the public’s lack of an appetite for extended power outages, after the passage of Hurricane Beryl 95 per cent of customers had their power restored in a week. This he said compared favourably with Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 after which it took three months for power to be restored.
The JPS president said with more than 30 percent of power outages due to vegetation management, the company was leveraging technology to better execute its vegetation management programme.
“We are now using satellite imagery to inform us in terms of clearances and encroachments on the distribution lines,” he said.
Grant said technology was also being used to inform the company of various species of trees and their growth patterns, and to hire better quality contractors to expedite its vegetation programme.
The JPS president said there has been a change in the company’s philosophy in relation to storms.
“Typically, what happens is when a storm hits, we look to bring you external resources. That is no longer the case. We’re now having (pre-storm) models, we’re going to have some estimation to the damage and we’re going to pre-stage resources whereby we’re currently engaging overseas contractors to have retainer contracts. So, before the storm hits, we’re going to have boots on the ground ready to respond,” he said.
