The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) last night said that it had corrected a combination of problems that forced it into load shedding activity yesterday after the electricity firm and two of its independent energy providers experienced supply shortfalls.

A news release from the JPS said that the load shedding ended at approximately 5:30 pm after the firm successfully restored to service “some of the units that had been taken off line due to unexpected problems”.

“The company had been forced to carry out load shedding for most of the day, as a result of a significant shortfall in generating capacity,” the JPS said. “The shortfall was due to problems on some generating units belonging to both JPS and its generating partners, or Independent Power Producers (IPPs), while other units, including one large base load unit, were off the grid for planned maintenance.”

Earlier the load shedding had resulted in power outages in sections of the island. Observer sources said the JPS lost 90 megawatts of its power supply, while its two independent power suppliers – Caribbean Energy Service Limited and Jamaica Private Power Company – experienced problems with their units at the same time.

Contacted for comment, JPS’ corporate communications manager Winsome Callum said, “It is not unusual for us to have some units out due to planned maintenance, but what has been unusual in this case is that we have had them all at the same time”.

Callum said under normal circumstances, the company would not experience such a shortfall in its energy supply as it has adequate reserve margin to cover ongoing maintenance and any other hiccups.

She explained that the company had scheduled planned maintenance on one of its larger units, however unexpected problems developed on a number of other units belonging to the JPS as well as two of its independent power producers.

Cecil Gordon, plant manager at the Caribbean Energy Services Limited (Dr Bird Power Station) in Old Harbour, told the Observer that they experienced problems with two of their units which saw them losing 18 megawatts of the 124 megawatts they supply to the JPS.

Gordon further explained that two of his company’s 11 units were affected by a fuel leak.

When the Observer spoke with him late yesterday evening, he said they had already rectified the damage on one of the units and were working feverishly to restore the other one by 7 o’clock last night.

Efforts to get a response from the Jamaica Private Power Company proved futile as the business/administrative manager, Millicent Isaacs, said she was unaware of any problems being experienced by the company, and the production manager could not be reached for a comment.