OUR tells JPS to fix issues identified in August 2016 power outage
KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) has ordered the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) to ensure that adequate measures are introduced to forestall and prevent the recurrence of identified problems associated with the all-island power outage in August 2016.
This includes addressing the issues associated with the performance of certain Independent Power Producers’ (IPP) generation facilities.The recommendation was made in OUR’s report released on May 4 after a detailed analysis of circumstances surrounding the system shutdown on August 27 last year, which came on the heels of a similar outage four months earlier.According to OUR, a fault on the JPS 69 kV transmission system between the Port Authority of Jamaica and Hunts Bay substations resulted in unstable voltage and frequency conditions about 5:45 pm on the day in mention.These unstable conditions in turn precipitated the tripping of all generating units online and consequently a total system failure, the organisation said. Other recommendations include a review of the power company’s current switching procedures and safety rules.OUR urged JPS to establish appropriate systems to ensure compliance, as a matter of priority. The utilities regulator further instructed JPS to “urgently review the policies and procedures governing all communication between system control and field personnel to ensure greater accountability” and to maintain sound records management and storage system to ensure that all communications between the system control centre and other operations personnel can be properly recorded and protected.This, OUR said, is so that records can be accessible to the regulator in future to facilitate necessary investigations and audits.The August power outage was the second occasion that year when the electricity system experienced a major failure, the first having occurred on April 17, 2016.The OUR also took the opportunity to reiterate that JPS should implement the recommendations coming from the OUR’s investigation of the April 17 system outage, in accordance with the approved Action Plan.Among the OUR’s investigation team findings are that:- The system shutdown was caused by the failure of the system Operator’s maintenance personnel to remove a ‘short and ground’ that was installed on the 69 kV Transmission System at the Port Authority substation to facilitate maintenance work at the substation.- The primary protection scheme failed to trip the relevant circuit breaker and clear the fault as was expected.- The relevant back-up protection scheme failed to clear the fault as was expected.- The non-functioning of a number of important communication systems during the system shutdown affected the early analysis of the problem and therefore delayed restoration activities.