SECTIONS OF the island were still being affected by blackouts up to press time last night, despite recent assurances from the Jamaica Public Service Co. (JPSCo) of adequate power supply for the Christmas holidays.
The company says it "expects a return to normality" by today as the problems are being resolved by its engineers.
JPSCo has been trying to reduce the inconvenience to customers by restricting to one hour, the duration of power outages in the affected areas.
Frequent power cuts have been occurring in various sections of the island since Saturday. Many shop owners in downtown Kingston were forced to switch on standby generators to keep their customers cool. Some claimed that sales were affected as a result of the frequent outages.
Up to Sunday, sections of the Corporate Area were still being affected by extended outages. The Mirant-owned JPSCo has blamed "an unexpected shortfall in generating capacity" for the latest round of load-shedding.
According to a news release from the light-and-power company, a problem developed on a transformer that regulates power from a unit at one of its generating plants. This, added to problems it was having with some of its gas turbines. The Gleaner was told that the problems occurred at the company's Old Harbour Bay plant, St. Catherine.
Just last week, Winsome Callum, JPSCo's communications manager, assured customers that the company expected to have adequate generating capacity for the holidays. Her assurance came against the background of the recent periodic power cuts which left customers complaining. She said the causes behind recent bouts of load-shedding had been resolved and maintenance work on the company's islandwide generating capacity was far advanced with two new 40-megawatt gas turbine generators brought online recently.
On Friday, J. Paul Morgan, director-general of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), described as unacceptable, the recent power outage which left thousands of JPSCo customers in sections of St. Catherine without electricity for several hours.
"Clearly this level of service is unacceptable," Mr. Morgan told journalists during the OUR's quarterly press conference at its Trafalgar Road headquarters, New Kingston.
This, he said, was despite the fact that the outage was triggered during routine maintenance aimed at ensuring a more reliable supply to the communities that were affected.
"...Speaking on behalf of consumers, we really will not excuse situations which really are within the control of the company and where we feel that they really ought to have done better," Mr. Morgan stated.
However, he expressed optimism that power cuts would soon be an infrequent phenomenon. He cited efforts by the management of the electricity utility to install new capacity since August last year when 20 megawatts were added. Another 80 megawatts were added this year.
"Last year, the real problem was inadequate capacity for whatever reason. The mathematics will tell you that the capacity is now approaching reasonable and acceptable levels that one would expect from a company of the size of Disco," Mr. Morgan said. He pointed to an additional 40 megawatts the company has promised by the middle of next year.
"They will be at the level where it is accepted as a reasonable standard for a system of this size and a load of this size," Mr. Morgan said. "So certainly from a generation point of view with stability, we're seeing that the system should be stable."
