JPS: Bills could increase after storm

 

Jamaicans are being warned that electricity bills could climb for the billing cycle following the passage of Tropical Storm Melissa. 

 

JPS President and Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant explained that the kind of fuel used to keep the grid running during a storm comes at a higher operating cost. 

 

"The floating storage regassification unit - that's the unit that supplies our liquefied natural gas - due to the threats and the adverse weather conditions, they're going to go ahead and demobilise. We're no longer going to have access to liquefied natural gas at some of our facilities and unavailability of a particular unit that's only able to burn liquefied natural gas that's controlled by the Independent Power Producers. So what that means for us is more pricey commodity, so that could potentially have upward pressures on the bill," he warned.

 

He says the output of clean energy is limited during adverse weather events, which increases dependency on fossil fuels.

 

"Wind and solar are significantly curtailed - curtailment in the order of over 80 per cent. Therefore, in terms of the availability of that, you're talking about less than 20 per cent. In Jamaica we have just over 50 megawatts of solar. The expected output during a hurricane, given the cloud cover, is pretty much zero or a little bit above that. So you now are going to be have to be running other units that's burning fossil fuel to offset that to meet the customer demand and also ensure you have system stability and not a shutdown," he advised.

 

He said JPS is working with the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) and other agencies to minimise the increases.