In May of this year Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Kamina Johnson Smith warned that Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, is close to reaching climate departure. If this were to happen it would mean that the city’s coolest year after 2005 will be hotter than the hottest year in its history so far. Rising temperatures in Jamaica have already resulted in peak demand for electricity in 2023, but Kingston holds immense significance as the city, along with the surrounding metropolitan areas in St Andrew and St Catherine, account for around 50 to 60 per cent of the country’s total electricity consumption.

Due to the sheer size of Kingston’s demand for electricity relative to the rest of the country, fluctuations or changes in electricity demand within Kingston and its surrounding metropolitan areas can have a substantial impact on the entire national electrical grid and energy consumption patterns. Therefore, understanding and managing electricity usage in Kingston becomes crucial for maintaining a stable and sustainable energy supply across the entire island.

Lincoy Small, director of system operations at the Jamaica Public Service (JPS), the island’s electrical utility company, confirmed that the country’s electrical landscape is significantly influenced by Kingston even before the advent of climate departure.

According to Small, the immense size of the demand for electricity from the capital city means that “any increase in temperature [across Jamaica], you would directly see a spike in that demand from customers living in Kingston, St Andrew and St Catherine, even though the temperature effects are islandwide.”

“Due to the socio-economic profile of Kingston, St Andrew, and Catherine, which have a large number of residential, commercial, and industrial customers, these areas will account for a significant share of the demand in Jamaica,” Small explained.

The complicating factor in this scenario is that there are not a lot of electricity-generating plants in Kingston’s urban environment and power has to be drawn from rural areas to the city via the JPS’s current transmission lines.

This has implications as temperatures rise and demand increases.

“So one of the things you have to do in your forward thinking and your planning is that you may reach a time that the existing lines are no longer able to satisfy demand,” the director of systems operations explained. “So it might cause you now to be building new transmission lines, new infrastructure to support that increase in demand.”

In managing demand across a grid, constructing new transmission and distribution infrastructure to meet growing demand is often necessary. This means that as the load increases there is a need to expand the size and capacity of the equipment to accommodate it – an essential aspect to be addressed as the load continues to grow.

“And that is why forward planning is important, because these lines are not built overnight. It can take up to three years to build a new transmission line,” Small revealed. “You have to do that forward planning way in advance and do some kind of sensitivities like these to anticipate these high spikes in demand so that you can reduce the risk of not being able to supply that demand.”

Any strategy to address the power demand could also include building new generating plants within Kingston itself, but this plan would have to determine how to navigate the lack of available space in an urban environment. Another option would be the use of energy storage technologies, such as batteries, which can help to store excess energy generated during periods of high renewable, typically from solar and wind, output and release it during peak demand, improving grid stability and reliability.

The JPS executive disclosed that forward planning in the form of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) developed by the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology is underway to address any eventuality of more power being needed for Kingston and St Andrew and is reviewed annually or biennially with considerations for higher and even lower demand scenarios, such as those seen in the COVID-19 pandemic.

To protect consumers from costs associated with adjusting infrastructure to meet rising demand, the JPS, the Government, and the Office Of Utilities Regulation (OUR) have a least-cost plan which aims to determine the most cost-effective way to meet growing demand. This doesn’t necessarily mean continuously spending more money, it could involve retiring or replacing old and inefficient assets while making room for new ones.

The overall goal is to keep electricity reliable and prices low to help customers manage potential future cost increases.

Meanwhile, as temperatures continue to rise in Kingston and its environs, the JPS is helping customers to manage the cost of increased electricity consumption by encouraging mindfulness of their energy usage and the adoption of energy efficiency and conservation practices.

“You don’t basically run the fan for the whole day,” Small advised. “You might have timers on your AC units that you manage. A lot of people don’t know that their AC units have filters in them, things they have to clean [for greater efficiency].”

By optimising the efficiency of cooling systems, maintaining equipment, and conserving energy, customers can reduce their energy consumption and associated costs.

Kingston’s potential climate departure has far-reaching implications for the electrical grid and may require actions to strengthen grid resilience, integrate renewable energy, implement energy storage solutions, and modernise the grid infrastructure. These considerations, coupled with public awareness and education, can contribute to a more sustainable and reliable electrical grid for Kingston and the entire country, even as it faces the challenges posed by climate change.