OUR opens probe into Jamaica islandwide power blackout

The Office of Utilities Regulation has formed a special internal team to examine last week's islandwide power failure, after the Jamaica Public Service Company submitted an early account of what happened on June 5.

The regulator said the group will study JPS's final report once it is received, test the company's findings and recommendations, and decide whether any regulatory response is required. For now, the OUR said the preliminary document does not give enough detail on what caused the outage, so enforcement action cannot yet be pursued.

In its assessment, the OUR said the initial report offered only limited treatment of the root cause and could not support conclusions, recommendations or firm regulatory measures at this stage. The agency said it still helps to identify urgent issues that arose after electricity was restored and to guide JPS on what must be covered in the final, more detailed submission.

That final report is due within 30 days of the full restoration of power. The OUR said it expects the document to include the critical inputs needed for a fuller investigation.

JPS has said the blackout came after several faults affected important transmission infrastructure in the Corporate Area during heavy rain and lightning. The company said its early checks also suggest there may have been a malfunction in a protection system on the Hunts Bay to Rockfort transmission line. JPS said that issue may have helped trigger wider instability on the grid and the eventual system shutdown.