Director of System Operations at the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), Lincoy Small, says residential customers accounted for the majority of Jamaica’s energy consumption this summer.

Speaking on Taking Stock with Kalilah Reynolds, Small noted that Jamaica’s peak energy consumption reached an all-time high in July. 

According to JPS, the island’s peak energy demand hit 692 megawatts on July 12, 4% higher than the previous record set in 2017. 692 is the same as powering up roughly 6 million 100-watt light bulbs all at the same time. 

JPS’s statement comes as scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, July 2023 was hotter than any other month in the global temperature record.

According to NASA, July was 0.24 degrees Celsius warmer than any other July in NASA’s record, which extends back to the 1800s. 

Small said that this increased global temperature has prompted many residential customers to purchase air conditioning units and use more energy to power them. 

He said that the increased demand has placed added pressure on the country’s grid, however, JPS has been able to keep up and meet demands.

“We’ve actually been doing a very good job and we’ve had no incidents in serving that demand from our customers,” he said.

“[Increased demand] is something that we anticipate and every time we operate our system we have generating units that will serve your load and we’ll have some units on standby with reserve capacity to serve that demand,” he added.

He noted that the instances of blackouts that occurred this summer were mainly due to outside factors such as electricity thief, car accidents and adverse weather.

Small said JPS is also making preparations to manage power and energy throughout the remainder of the hurricane season. 

“The deeper into the rainy season we get, a lot of things might happen, especially in the months of September,” he said.

“Sometimes things might happen; if you get rain or a tropical storm that takes certain areas of the country off the grid then it might affect our supply but we’re not planning for anything to happen and all the systems are good,” he added.