Jamaicans See 8% Increase on Electricity Bills
Customers of the Jamaican electricity supplier, Jamaica Public Service (JPS), have seen an eight percent or five hundred dollars average increase on their bills.
Ms. Winsome Callum, Director of Corporate Communications and Customer Experience at JPS has explained that this increase has been to several factors, the most significant one being the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar and an increase in fuel costs for JPS.
Most of the material needed for electricity generation was bought with US Dollars which is why the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar had caused an increase in costs of generation.
She also went on to explain that the decreasing oil prices were not affecting their energy prices because 70% of the fuel mix used to produce electricity by JPS is based on LNG whose prices had stayed relatively stable which is why energy prices had not changed significantly before.
Earlier JPS reported that…
The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) explained that the higher light bills the customers are complaining about recently, are being driven by increased electricity usage.
In a statement, the JPS said there are instances where residential customers have increased their electricity consumption by up to 50% and there has been a hike in the amount seen on their bills because of this.
Many customers are now spending more time at home, due to the lockdown because of COVID-19.
Despite an overall drop of 2.5 % in electricity usage for the month of March, since the start of the COVID19 outbreak residential consumption has gone up by approximately 3%.
“Persons who would have been out of the home, working for at least eight hours, in some instances, are now using more electricity, as they are now working at home. Children who are being home-schooled, due to the safety measures introduced by the government in order to limit the spread of COVID-19 had caused the hike as well,” a JPS spokesperson said in a statement.
When customers use the same number of kilowatt-hours in the present bill, as the previous one, they will notice that their current bill has remained relatively the same.
The JPS wants customers to efficiently use energy and to pay attention to the usage chart on their bills, as they track their consumption trends each month.
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