The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), the island’s sole distributor of electricity, said it will be doubling its expenditure on energy projects by December this year in an attempt to drive down the cost of energy.
JPS views the investment as key to driving efficiencies, according to Chairman Seji Kawamura, who was appointed earlier this year, as well as incoming President and CEO Emanuel DaRosa, who takes up that position effective August 1.
The big project entails the construction of its cutting-edge storage facility, which will store energy produced at renewable plants.
“This year, we are spending US$100 million on investments on the purchase of properties and plant and equipment,” stated Kawamura following the JPS’s annual general meeting at its Knutsford Boulevard, New Kingston, head office on Friday.
The JPS spent US$56 million and US$65 million, respectively, on the purchase of property, plant, and equipment in the 2016 and 2015 financial years.
“We are making sure that when the renewables are coming in, that there must be a storage system to accommodate them,” Kawamura said.
In June, the JPS announced plans to build a 24.5-megawatt facility to store energy as a safeguard against power outages. It was described as the first of its kind in the Caribbean.
The light and power supplier plans to build the facility next year, but no cost was disclosed at the time. It will act like a giant battery that charges when solar or wind-energy plants generate energy. It then kicks into action to feed the grid the power these renewable plants generate when there is cloud cover or low wind speeds.
“This represents the confidence of shareholders in the future of the business,” Kawamura said, explaining that renewables would reduce the reliance on oil imports, the cost of which are passed on to customers.
“So we will charge less fuel on the bill to you, so we are not making it more expensive,” he added.
Kawamura and DaRosa lauded the outgoing president and chief executive officer, Kelly Tomlin, and indicated that she had put the company in a good position for growth.
The JPS made US$24 million net profit on revenues of US$712.5 million for its 2016 financial year or 9.4 per cent less net profit than a year earlier.
