Lightning-linked grid failure caused Jamaica blackout as OUR seeks JPS report

Jamaica’s electricity supply was restored by 6:30 a.m. Saturday after a nationwide blackout shortly after 9 p.m. Friday left homes, businesses and critical services without power, disrupted motorists during heavy rain and triggered public anger at Jamaica Public Service Company.

JPS said generating units were restarted and customers were brought back in stages, including sections of Kingston and St. Andrew, St. James, Clarendon and St. Catherine. The company apologised and said restoration began within an hour of the system failure.

Energy Minister Daryl Vaz called the incident unacceptable and said he had been in discussions with the relevant authorities from Friday into Saturday. At a stakeholder briefing at JPS’s New Kingston head office, Office of Utilities Regulation Director General Ansell Hewitt said the OUR had requested a preliminary report from JPS by the end of Monday. He noted that the regulatory framework allows 30 days for a full incident report with a root-cause analysis and recommendations.

JPS chairman Hugh Grant said preliminary information pointed to heavy lightning activity in the Corporate Area near key generating stations, transmission assets and substations. He said five transmission lines from a major Corporate Area substation were lost, followed by a cascading loss of generation that shut down the grid. Officials said a fire at Up Park Camp was not connected to the outage.

Opposition energy spokesman Phillip Paulwell said the public needed accountability, citing a similar islandwide outage in August 2016 and asking whether the recommendations from that probe were ever implemented.

Vaz also reported that Flow and Digicel said connectivity in affected areas had largely returned, with backup generators and batteries keeping most systems online overnight, though some areas could still see intermittent service while commercial power stabilised.

In other news, a toddler died Saturday morning after a Toyota Voxy carrying four passengers collided with a Nissan pickup on Peppermint Road in St. Elizabeth. The child’s 18-year-old mother was admitted to hospital in critical condition after all four were taken to Mandeville Regional Hospital.

The Meteorological Service said a trough near the central Caribbean was expected to bring showers, thunderstorms and strong winds through Tuesday, especially over eastern, south-central and southern parishes. In western Jamaica, Operation Shelter J.A. and partners handed over container homes to hurricane-affected residents in St. James, Hanover and Westmoreland on Friday, June 5.