MONTEGO BAY, St James — Noting that the Jamaica Public Service Company’s (JPS) grid is designed to withstand Category 3 storms, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the light and power company, Hugh Grant, has revealed plans to improve the design of the grid to withstand Category 5 hurricanes going forward.

He made the disclosure during the Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee meeting in the House of Representatives Tuesday.

Grant said several areas in Jamaica were impacted by Category 4 hurricane force winds during the passage of Hurricane Beryl last year.

“Now what that means is once you are having conditions that exceed your grid design, you are now thinking about a rebuild and not necessarily restoration,” he said.

He added that going forward, the grid will be bolstered to be more resilient.

“In regard to the remainder of the grid, there will be a building out a resiliency portfolio across the energy system. That is something that we have also engaged the regulator around in terms of dialogue,” Grant said.

“And what does resiliency look like? Right now based on our current system design, if you have one pole that falls, you have a cascading effect and take down several spans. A resiliency portfolio has [the] equivalent such as breakaway switches, whereby after the first span you breakaway, and the remaining spans stand up. That allows for more timely restoration as you have minimised the impact on the grid. So really, having two things… one, going forward, category designs, and anywhere that we have to do restorations, such as St Elizabeth, and that’s already been done.

“And then secondly, really having a resiliency portfolio as part of our grid going forward just due to the nature of climate change and its impact,” he added.

Meanwhile, committee member and Member of Parliament for St Andrew South Eastern Julian Robinson inquired how the new design would factor on customers’ bills.

“CEO, you had indicated that you plan to improve your capabilities to withstand Category 5 hurricanes and that’s a good thing. But I understand, and I know that that will require significant capital expenditures, and so I wanted to understand the time frame, the impact that it is likely going to have on your customers with whatever expenditure it is that you are going to be undertaking,” Robinson asked.

Grant noted that, “we made and asked in our rate case to have an incremental increase in the overall portfolio to afford us the opportunity to do that”.

“In terms of time frames, that’s with new designs and new builds going forward. For example, in St Elizabeth, in areas where we did a rebuild, that was upgraded to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. Other new line extensions and build outs will be for category five,” he added.

In response to Robinson’s follow-up question as to whether the plans will likely be implemented prior to the 2025 hurricane season, Grant noted that not all will, but said National Water Commission (NWC) pumping stations, telecommunication sites and hospitals will be prioritised.

“I would say some of the plans will be implemented but not all the plans,” Grant explained.

“And in addressing some of the plans, it’s being prioritised. For example, we are prioritising grid resiliency as it relates to supply to NWC pumps; we are prioritising grid resiliency as it relates to supply some of our telecom sites; we are prioritising grid resiliency as it relates to hospitals. So there is some prioritisation around grid resiliency. Grid resiliency is going to be a multi-year programme going forward,” he added.

For her part, Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte commended JPS’s post-Beryl response even as she noted that there is room for improvement.

“Notwithstanding room for improvement, it was a good response and we are all now in the aftermath learning lessons. And we have to demonstrate that we have learned the lessons by actually doing differently,” Malahoo Forte said