THE JAMAICA Public Service Company (JPSCo) says that it expects to have adequate generating capacity for the holidays, despite customer concerns about recent periodic powercuts.
JPSCo's communications manager Winsome Callum said yesterday that the most recent blackouts on Tuesday night were caused by problems at one of the units in Old Harbour.
She said, however, the causes behind recent bouts of load-shedding have been resolved and maintenance work on the company's generating units have been timed to coincide with customer demand during the season.
Meanwhile work on the Bogue project in St. James which should expand the company's islandwide generating capacity is far advanced with two new 40-megawatt gas turbine generators brought online recently. JPSCo says that these 80 megawatts of new capacity have laid the groundwork for improved service to customers. The programme will continue with the installation of another 40-megawatt unit and when that unit comes online in mid-2003, that will increase JPSCo's reserve margin to 25 per cent.
The new units are part of JPSCo's Generation Expan-sion Plan which features the development of a new 120-megawatt combined cycle power plant as an extension to the existing Bogue Power Station. The new plant will produce energy more efficiently than existing units. The completed unit will be the largest on the island, putting out some 800 megawatts of power.
This should reduce consumer investments in standby generators and increase confidence and reliance on the energy supplied by the utility company.
The generating unit is valued at $100 million and has been described as the single most important investment to be undertaken by JPSCo.
At the commissioning ceremony of the first phase of the new power plant in September, then Energy Minister Anthony Hylton explained that during the last four years, residential energy needs had outstripped the total power needs of the island as the total power demand in Jamaica has been growing at about 5 per cent, while the power demand in the residential sector has been growing at about 6 per cent.
