As advances in the information communication technology (ICT) sector continue to dictate and accelerate the pace at which everyday business and leisure activities are being conducted across the world, Jamaica is taking steps to keep up with this global energy revolution.

“The whole concept of the traditional grid is being transformed. JPS is putting Jamaica on a path to becoming one of the most technologically advanced countries this side of the hemisphere,” says Gary Barrow, JPS’ chief technology officer. “JPS is, in fact, on track to achieve its mission of making the capital Kingston, as well as Montego Bay, the first Smart Cities in Jamaica and the Caribbean.”

Since 2012, JPS has been investing in technological intelligence, consistent with the phased transformation of its islandwide infrastructural network into a Smart Grid. And Jamaicans are already seeing the benefits by way of a significant improvement in the reliability of their power supply, which in 2015 translated into a 32 per cent decrease in the frequency of power outages over the previous year.

Barrow explains that, while in the past power outages were an inconvenience, today they have a more direct and devastating impact. “When light goes out, when we have an outage, it’s like your whole life falls apart. Your router goes down, your WiFi goes down, your Internet…. people who are doing business from home – your whole world just falls apart.

“The consumer’s lifestyle now is so dependent on energy, but most don’t even realise, until the power goes. Today, it’s a completely different experience when electricity goes, compared to when it went in the past, and so the issue of reliability becomes critical. This is where the Smart Grid comes in, because these intelligent devices we are adding allow us to have better control and to restore outages much more quickly,” Barrow explains.

Towards a Self-Healing Network

In the past, a vehicle crashing into a light pole and breaking it, or a tree falling across a line, could result in as many as 12,000 customers going offline at the same time. The repair crew would then have to drive the length of the distribution line in order to find the fault before repairs could begin. Now, the ongoing investment in what the senior executive described as a ‘Self-Healing Network’ is paying off for both JPS and its customers.

“The truth is that the electricity network is designed to fail, to protect itself. You don’t want to have a simple fault on the network that is going to cause your transformer to actually explode, your substation to shut down, or cause a generator to go offline. So we have a protection scheme which really is a sophisticated design with various computers and relays right across the network. These include distribution automation (DA) switches and other intelligent communication devices which, upon sensing when a fault occurs, automatically shut down a smaller segment of the grid and, where possible, go on to transfer the affected customer load to another adjacent feeder line. And even greater improvements are in the works,” according to Barrow.

“Eventually, we’ll get to the point where we have a complete Self-Healing Network. The switches have the intelligence now to do the sensing and to immediately, within milli-seconds, actually transfer the load. To date, we have added over 120 of those intelligent devices, and the impact is being felt. An additional 50 devices are to be added by the end of 2016. The total cost of this initiative over the three years since we started, is US$1.4 million,” the JPS chief technology officer says.

Smart Meters

JPS plans to spend US$63.2 million on the roll-out of Smart Meters, another device in the arsenal of the Smart Grid, over the next five years.

Some consumers would already be familiar with Smart Meters, which currently allow most of JPS’ large business customers to monitor energy usage, with real time access to their usage information. The company now has over 50,000 smart meters deployed across the island, and plans to install and additional 20,000 by the end of 2016.

Barrow explains: “By 2020, some 80 per cent of Jamaica’s population will be walking around with a super computer in their pockets, and JPS will be equipped and ready to supply their many and varied energy needs. They will want a lot more control over their electricity supply, over their rates, their bills. They will want the ability to be able to turn on and turn off equipment and appliances, and so we have to equip the network and put in the intelligence and the software that give our customers that capability. The fact is, they just want more control and they want it on-the-fly.”

Some customers in Jack’s Hill, St Andrew are already enjoying some of that control, as they are involved in a pilot project aimed at empowering them to remotely monitor and gauge their energy usage. “Rather than us doing the monitoring, they can actually look and see the kilowatt hours they are using and what their patterns are on weekdays compared to weekends, for example. We are empowering the customers with that capability,” asserts Barrow.

The energy company is well on its way to meeting the target of some 90 per cent of its revenue actually being monitored by and generated through Smart Meters by the year 2020. The operations of these Smart Meters and other investments in technological intelligence will be monitored from a state-of-the-art control centre where a massive electronic map provides a constant bird’s eye view of the company’s islandwide infrastructural network, as well as 24-hour linkage to its customer information system, giving new meaning to the term “hands on” operations.

“The Smart Meters are just the beginning,” says Barrow. “They are part of a bigger plan to empower our customers. The technology will allow customers to not only take charge of their energy usage, but also access a range of other services using the power delivery network. JPS is also well advanced with the development of several Mobile Apps, which will be rolled out later this year. These Apps will allow customers to access many of our services via their smart phones,” promises Barrow.