37% Reliability Improvement in Linstead and Surrounding Communities
March 8, 2021
Since the commissioning of the Michelton Halt Substation in St. Catherine, at the end of 2019, Linstead and surrounding communities, have seen a 37% improvement in reliability. The JPS 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.
This 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 5-year programme, which began in 2019/2020, that seeks to improve JPS’ 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.
“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,” says Senior Vice President of Energy Delivery, Blaine Jarrett.
JPS says it is heartened by the increased confidence of customers in the communities served by the substation, and commits to continuous improvement in reliability for customers islandwide.
