President and CEO of the Jamaica Public Service (JPS), Michel Gantois said that revenue at the utility provider has fallen by about 10% compared previous years, due to the pandemic.

Gantois sat down with Kalilah Reynolds in an exclusive interview on Taking Stock.  He said that since March when Jamaica confirmed its first case of COVID-19, revenue started to ebb as the pandemic “dramatically” reduced the demand for electricity. 

Michel Gantois,
President & CEO, Jamaica Public Service (JPS)

He added that the work from home rules as part of public gathering restrictions, resulted in less power usage at businesses.  Even though residential use has increased, Gantois noted that the bulk of their revenue comes from commercial customers. He cited cases of hotel and other business closures which the company would usually depend on for larger electricity demand.

The CEO said the pandemic has forced more of its customers to “shift online” to pay bills and ask questions, but he also reasoned that residential customers in particular have been feeling the brunt of the effects of larger customers taking less from the grid.

“It puts a lot of pressure on us as a company and therefore customers and then a lot of people have difficulty paying for electricity,” he said.

The relationship between residential and commercial clients of the JPS has also become relevant in the context of larger businesses possibly looking to switch from the grid altogether to using renewable energy sources like solar, a trend which the CEO said has been noticed around the world.

He said if this trend was to pick up locally, it may mean that residential customers will have to pay more to maintain the utility’s infrastructure.

“The more we have big customers switching from the grid, which is maybe good for them, the worse it is for residential customers who can’t do the same and still have to pay for the infrastructure,” he said.

But the CEO said that changes will depend on consultations, noting that other countries facing this dilemma are looking at how to balance the utility expenses on a societal level.

“It’s a choice of society to say we think that industrial companies, even if they only use electricity from the grid at night for example when there is sun, or a few hours a day, they still should pay more. That’s a choice as a society we need to make,” he said.

Mr Gantois said new rules will have to be sought quickly to manage the evolving landscape in order to protect the small man.

“What we don’t want is to actually press charges onto the more vulnerable in terms of their supply of electricity,” he added.

In the meantime, the CEO said the company is looking to brush off the effects of the pandemic as quickly as possible, especially as the situation could determine the success of an anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO).

He said that management will not determine the timing of the sale of the 19.9% of JPS shares held by Government, but he reasoned that potential investors would want a prosperous company rather than one that’s suffering.

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