The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) has received a report from the Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. (JPS) regarding the islandwide blackout that occurred earlier this month.

"We are currently reviewing the report," David Geddes, OUR director of consumer and public affairs, told The Gleaner yesterday, "(The report) will guide us in our investigations."

Mr. Geddes said since the company had only just received the report from the JPS, it was too early to say when information on the cause of the blackout would be available. He stated, however, that the JPS's report was extensive, with "lots of appendices".

External experts

He also said it was possible the OUR may have to call in external experts to further investigate the matter.

On July 3, JPS customers across the island lost power shortly after 5:00 a.m. The blackout lasted approximately 10 hours, with a few areas being without electricity for up to 12 hours in other places power was eventually restored around midday. At that time, the blackout was initially blamed on problems at the JPS's Old Harbour power station in St. Catherine.

This closely mirrored the outage that occurred last year, on July 15, when the island lost electricity from 3:00 p.m. to 12:15 a.m. In that previous case, the JPS initially said the blackout was caused by a lightning striking a steel tower at the Duncans/Bogue transmission link, in Trelawny.