RENEWED talk of converting Jamaica’s overhead power lines to an underground system does not appear to have excited Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR).

“We’ve thought about it, we’ve discussed it in the past [and] the cost has just looked prohibitive, but there are other considerations,” OUR Director General Ansord Hewitt told the Jamaica Observer Press Club on August 23 before inviting his manager, engineering and technical analysis Courtney Francis, to speak further on the matter.

“One of the critical factors is the question of economics. Underground systems can cost as much as five to eight times more than an overhead system, and if we want electricity rates to be lower, the question is: Can we include that in our planning? In addition to that, the whole question of flooding is important,” Francis said.

He recalled being invited to The Bahamas some years ago, after a hurricane, to speak about Jamaica’s Electricity Disaster Fund, as well as hardening of the system.

The fund was established in 2004 to help Jamaica Public Service (JPS) undertake recovery and restoration efforts in the aftermath of a disaster.

“We got there about three weeks after the hurricane and they explained to us that the system wasn’t up, because in Nassau there is quite a bit of underground cables but because of the flooding they can’t get to them,” Francis shared.

“So, if you’re going to harden the grid by doing underground conductory transmission it has to be very strategic — because you may achieve the opposite of what you had intended,” Francis said.

The issue of a subterranean electricity network came to the fore again after Hurricane Beryl hit Jamaica on July 3, knocking out electricity to hundreds of thousands of people and leaving a trail of destruction on the south coast, especially in St Elizabeth, the hardest-hit parish.

Shortly after the hurricane, Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist Dr Barbara Carby voiced qualified support for an underground electricity system.

“I think it would be the optimum situation, depending on the location. Because remember now that we have many unstable slopes in Jamaica which are highly landslide-prone, and we have areas very prone to flooding, so a proper study would have to be done to see the potential impacts on the underground cables that you might want to run,” she told journalist Dionne Jackson Miller on her Radio Jamaica evening news and current affairs programme Beyond the Headlines.

“I suspect it may all come down to economics, and that is something that the Government and the Jamaica Public Service would have to sit down and look at very carefully,” added Dr Carby, a former director general of Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management.

Also in July, Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Minister Daryl Vaz told journalists at a post-Cabinet press briefing that the Government is assessing the feasibility of an underground electricity system, but noted that it would be an expensive undertaking as it could cost the country seven times as much money to run the power lines underground, compared to the overhead system.

The heavy cost of a subterranean electricity system was one of the main highlights of a long-running court battle between the residents of Hope Pastures in St Andrew and JPS over the underground electricity distribution system in that community which the light and power company had maintained for 50 years.

In September 2014 the company, stating that the system was old and decrepit and could not be properly maintained, began a phased infrastructure upgrade in sections of the community to an overhead system.

The residents took legal action and sought a declaration from the court that JPS was to maintain the system, which meant replacing it. They also claimed that they were entitled to electricity exclusively by underground means, basing their argument on the fact that the underground electricity system was installed in the community when it was built by private developers in the early 1960s, and therefore JPS could not change the system.

The company had reminded the residents that when the underground system was installed, it was paid for by the householders.

The total cost of the overhead network, JPS said at the time, was $40.4 million.

The company also pointed out that the underground system would have cost approximately $143 million to install.

However, JPS said that if the residents wanted to have the underground system, they would need to pay the difference between that and the overhead system, which worked out to approximately $520,000 per household. The residents refused.

In a May 10, 2018 ruling on the matter, Chief Justice Bryan Sykes said that JPS has no statutory duty to supply electricity via underground means exclusively, as the claimants alleged.

In response, the residents sought a mandatory injunction from the Supreme Court ordering JPS to restore and maintain the underground system and remove the overhead supply.

Some of the residents also sought approximately $19 million in special damages for costs incurred by them to either connect to the overhead system or provide alternative sources of power.

In June 2022 the Supreme Court ruled that the underground system failed due to age and obsolescence, and not a lack of maintenance. As such, the court said it could not be repaired but had to be replaced.

The court also said that replacement of the underground system does not fall within JPS’s statutory obligation to repair, and the cost of any new system is to be met by the claimants.

The court noted that after the residents indicated their inability and/or unwillingness to pay for a new underground supply, JPS acted out of necessity by installing overhead wires in the community.

Judgment was therefore entered for JPS, with costs to be paid by the residents.

The power company had long ruled out the thought of running its electricity transmission lines underground.

In 2007, when current Chairman Damian Obligio was president and CEO he made it clear in an interview with JIS News that overhead lines remained the best option, despite Jamaica’s location in an area frequently affected by hurricanes and wind storms.

“The tariff for underground lines would go up significantly, and in the event of a disaster affecting those lines the restoration process would be longer,” he said at the time.

“You would have to build inspection chambers underground — which can be flooded — and it will take longer to remove the flood water and dry them,” he explained, adding, “If you check any of the big cities with underground cabling, you can verify that it takes longer to restore service after a disaster.”

Electricity distribution experts — while pointing to the cheaper cost, ease of wiring, and superior current capacity of overhead lines — have also acknowledged that underground lines are safer for the public because people cannot get in contact with them; are better for the environment because they do not produce as much noise as overhead lines; are not involved in as many accidents with wildlife, including endangered species; and give cities a neater look.