Jamaica Power Company Implements Network Upgrades After Investigation Into Islandwide Blackout

KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) says it has already begun implementing several corrective measures following a detailed investigation into last month’s islandwide blackout, aimed at strengthening the electricity network and reducing the risk of a similar event.

In a statement, JPS said the investigation, conducted with support from international experts, has been completed and identified a unique fault characteristic as the main factor behind the system shutdown.

The report has been submitted to the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) and the Ministry of Energy.

According to the findings, the outage, which occurred at 9:02 p.m. on Friday, June 5, was triggered by an unusual lightning strike-induced fault at the company’s Hunts Bay substation.

JPS said the fault remained on the transmission grid longer than expected, causing instability that led to generators tripping offline in rapid succession and ultimately resulting in a nationwide shutdown.

Electricity was fully restored to all customers by 6:34 a.m. on June 6.

The company described the incident as the first fault of its kind ever recorded on Jamaica’s transmission system. It said the rare, highly resistive and evolving fault was not cleared by the network’s primary protection system, while backup protection devices also responded more slowly than expected because of the fault’s unusual characteristics.

JPS said the prolonged fault, combined with the premature shutdown of some generating units, caused the electricity system to automatically collapse.

The investigation involved JPS engineering teams working alongside several international experts with extensive experience in power system operations.

Among the immediate corrective actions already taken are the replacement of primary protection equipment, a review of protection settings and schemes to better respond to rare fault conditions, and the acceleration of the company’s ongoing system protection modernization programme.

Additional measures are also being introduced to improve system protection, monitoring and overall network performance.

JPS said it will work with independent power producers to review generator protection settings to ensure generating plants comply with the electricity grid’s fault ride-through requirements.

The investigation found that some generating units disconnected from the grid earlier than expected in response to the fault.

The company also said it will collaborate with the OUR and the Ministry of Energy to implement the recommendations outlined in the report following the regulators’ review.

JPS President and CEO Hugh Grant said that while power was restored within hours, the company is focused on preventing a recurrence.

Grant said JPS is committed to learning from the incident, taking guidance from experts and working with key stakeholders to strengthen Jamaica’s electricity network and provide a safer, more reliable and resilient power supply.