KINGSTON, Jamaica — A team of senior executives and technical experts from the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) today met with Minister of Science Energy and Technology, Dr Andrew Wheatley and his team to discuss the islandwide blackout which took place on Saturday, August 27.

The meeting was reportedly convened at Minister Wheatley’s request.

A news release from JPS Thursday said the company’s President and CEO Kelly Tomblin provided an update on the ongoing investigation, noting that JPS is already taking steps to address human error potential and system protection concerns.

Tomblin also reportedly disclosed that the company is in the process of acquiring the services of an independent protection consultant to evaluate the company’s protection system.

“Our first concern is to take whatever steps we can to minimise the potential of any future outages. We believe that an independent protection and system expert can help us evaluate our total protection scheme and make recommendations for operation enhancements, and the level of investment required to meet reliability expectations. Our customers expect us to continue to improve the grid and we are going to meet those expectations,” Tomblin stressed.

According to the release, the JPS team also informed the minister that the enhanced protection system, known as ‘switch on to fault’, has been restored, while the company continues to evaluate whether this enhanced system would have prevented Saturday’s outage.

“While we have reported the suspension of the employees involved pending full investigation, we want to go further. We will be implementing an enhanced oversight plan, as part of our efforts to minimise the potential for future outages,” the CEO added.

JPS has also committed to involve the minister’s team in future grid investment decisions.

“We want our customers to know that we are taking every possible action to improve our reliability and prevent reoccurrences of these types of outages. Our goal is to provide information as soon as it becomes available and to facilitate a transparent investigation process,” she assured.