Power theft, LNG chokehold
NONE OF this is of any comfort to 80-year-old St Andrew resident Lucille James. Although she admitted that she did not understand the technicalities, she was not pleased that her light bill seems to be a moving target.
“If dem want me to join the bridge light crew, I will join it because I see dem send me a bill for $15,000 that I just fling down because I don’t know how it gonna pay,” the frustrated senior citizen told The Sunday Gleaner.
She said that although her granddaughter has been staying with her for a short time, she mostly lives alone, and despite efforts to conserve, her electricity bill keeps fluctuating.
“If I get a bill for one month that is not too bad, by the next month, it gone up. At nights, all I use is one light in the kitchen until I am going to my bed at 10 p.m. Since the virus (pandemic) start, I don’t even know what my clothes iron look like because I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
Sixty-year-old Kington resident Norma Clayton, who used to pay “like, $10,000 in 2018” for her monthly electricity bill, is also concerned about the movements in the charges.
Recently, her bills have been averaging $20,000, and she contends that her consumption pattern has not changed.
“I have the same things in my house. I don’t have nothing new,” the former domestic helper told The Sunday Gleaner.
“I don’t seh they not to raise it, but like fi poor people like me that live in the ghetto and trying not to thief dem light, it’s too much for the little things you have for your comfort like your little fan, the fridge, and those things,” the Kingston 20 resident said.
CORPORATE AREA POWER THEFT
But like many other Jamaicans, the senior citizens may be paying for those who steal electricity in their communities. The JPS has reported that it has been hit hardest by electricity theft in the Corporate Area communities, with losses of US$61 million for the 12-month period ending December 2020 in Kingston and St Andrew North alone.
This is another factor that the experts agree must be addressed in order to reduce the cost of electricity to consumers.
“Seventeen point five per cent of every bill that customers pay constitutes usage that they did not use. It is for the theft by the over 200,000 people who steal electricity. This is a significant amount of your bill,” Paulwell said.
“A fifth of the power that is produced from the plant does not reach the customers’ meters. I think that is one of the biggest issues we have now. Non-technical losses must be reduced,” Gordon agreed.
He pointed to the nature of the exclusive power-purchase agreement which the JPS has with the nation’s sole supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG), New Fortress South Power Holdings Limited, as another likely factor adding to high production cost.
“The natural gas contracts that we have in Jamaica are executed on take-or-pay arrangements, so what happens is that you have to pay for the gas even if you don’t use it,” Gordon explained.
“For example, when the pandemic broke out last year, the
cost of heavy fuel oil was almost at zero, so it was cheaper than gas,” he continued, noting that the country could have saved US$16 million monthly on production cost. “But the country didn’t benefit because you had to burn the LNG. So it doesn’t matter if a cheaper fuel exits, which could reduce the light bill. You have to use the gas because the contract forces you to use it.”
Recent sittings of the Joint Select Committee on the Electricity Act (2015) also saw members of the Opposition and stakeholders questioning the benefit of the JPS-New Fortress power-purchase agreement to Jamaicans and the economy.
Neither the JPS nor New Fortress responded to questions on the agreement, which is a private contractual bond and not open to public scrutiny.
For Paulwell, “this monopoly on LNG has been extremely detrimental to the sector”.
“The real benefits of LNG have not materialised to the extent that they ought to. JPS customers paid for all the infrastructure installation that the LNG plant needed to be established and it was agreed that as the private company got new customers, those customers would contribute to the cost of the establishment of the plants,” the former energy minister said. “But I have not seen any proof of that. If this had materialised, we would see a sizeable amount of money going back to compensate Jamaicans, who paid for that plant.”