JAMAICA PUBLIC Service Company's residential customers will be hit with more power cuts over the next month as the company struggles to manage a severe shortfall in its electricity generation capacity.
A fire at the company's Old Harbour plant earlier this month, which damaged the No. 3 generator, resulting in a loss of 60 megawatts of generating capacity, and the No. 2 unit with 65 megawatts being taken out for "scheduled maintenance" until the end of the month, have been blamed. The company has for some time been experiencing problems with one of its biggest independent power providers, the Rockfort-based Jamaica Private Power Company (JPPC), resulting in a shortfall of 30 megawatts.
The company in a statement yesterday said load shedding had become necessary because of the loss of three major generating units. It said the situation would return to normal within a month and that it had started negotiations for the installation of emergency capacity. This should be in place in another few weeks.
The Gleaner was unable to get the names of the agencies with which the company was having discussions, but was told another 25 megawatts was the amount being negotiated.
Starting yesterday, and for the next month, residential customers throughout the island will be without electricity between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. The blackouts will affect different groups of customers throughout the island for varying periods during the two-hour outage each day.
