KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica Public Service (JPS) says since the commissioning of the Michleton Halt Substation in St Catherine at the end of 2019, Linstead and surrounding communities have seen a 37 per cent improvement in reliability.

The company said the substation uses modern technology that has eliminated emergency outages originating at the substation level.

“This improvement has been bolstered by transmission line upgrades in the area, which allow the system to automatically isolate faults on any section of the line which supplies the substation, ensuring no single fault results in an outage at the substation – hence eliminating any such outage for customers,” JPS said in a statement.

The company said the Michelton Halt Substation Project, which serves customers in Linstead, Ewarton, Mount Rosser, Bog Walk, Sligoville, Riversdale, Troja, and Time and Patience, is part of a larger five-year programme, which began in 2019/2020, that seeks to improve its transmission and distribution facilities.

“While customers in and around Bog Walk and Linstead may occasionally still have planned and advertised service interruptions to carry out maintenance and upgrades, gaps in reliability have been significantly reduced,” the company said.

Senior Vice President of Energy Delivery at JPS, Blaine Jarrett said “I am extremely pleased with this decision to invest $489M to build this substation which provides significant improvement in power service for the residents of Linstead and its environs.”

“We are constantly assessing the needs of our customers, eliminating gaps in the system and looking for ways to improve on the strengths and capabilities that we have. I believe the residents in the area can attest to the improvement in the quality which they have experienced over the past year, compared to their previous experiences. And this is just a part of the work we are doing in this community and all across the island, to constantly elevate our customers’ experience,” she added.