Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter DESPITE providing an explanation for the August 2 power outage, which left a number of locations across the island without electricity and water for several hours, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) has delayed taking remedial action against the Jamaica Public Service Co. Ltd. (JPS) saying the power and light company needs to first provide a response to several unanswered questions. Meanwhile, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has again slammed the OUR for what it regards as a highly insufficient response to the power outage.
After analysing the light and power company's report on the blackout, the OUR disclosed in a statement that the JPS had blamed a "280 megawatt loss in generating capacity" as the main reason behind last week's blackout. The OUR also said that it ascertained that "up to 92 megawatts of load was shed at peak hours during Thursday August 2, 2007, because of generation shortfalls involving generating units of the JPS, Jamaica Energy Partners (JEP) and the Jamaica Private Power Company (JPPC).
Out of service
Additionally, the regulatory body revealed that prior to Thursday, August 2, three JPS generators with a combined capacity of just under 150 megawatts were out of service.
"JEP Barge Number 1 with a capacity of (74 megawatts) was removed from service shortly before 8:00 a.m. on [the day in question] to facilitate repair work scheduled for one hour.
"Shortly after 8:00 a.m., two JPPC units at Rockfort tripped with a combined total of 60 megawatts," the OUR stated.
It added that these incidents with the Independent power producers, coupled with the JPS generators previously out of service, resulted in a total reduction of 280 megawatts in the systems generating capacity.
No surprise
However, the JLP's Spokesman on Energy, Clive Mullings, argues that the OUR's disclosure that the JPS had experienced a shortfall in generating capacity was no surprise because this was already public knowledge. The JLP spokesman said what he had expected was that the OUR would have provided the JPS with a timeline to get the problem rectified and would have ensured that the light and power company adhered to this timeline, rather than simply saying it was "waiting for a response," which he considered "insufficient".
"They are the regulatory body, so it's not for them to wait for the JPS to respond. If they were monitoring properly any at all, they would know that Mirant had not put in the sufficient generating capacity that they had committed to, so there was a shortfall in any event," said Mr. Mullings.
"They've also had the benefit of the Canadian consultants and the recommendations that JPS was expected to adhere to, so they should know throughout their monitoring whether they had adhered to these recommendations and if not, why not?"
