JPS repair crew restores power line after a storm. (Credit: Ventyx)The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), the sole provider of electricity to Jamaica, has signed a software license agreement with Ventyx, an ABB company. As part of the agreement, JPS will upgrade its Ventyx customer information system (CIS) solution and implement Ventyx’s mobile workforce management and outage management system solutions to gain greater visibility across its transmission network, significantly improving outage-restoration times in the aftermath of severe weather conditions.
Located in the hurricane belt of the Atlantic Ocean, Jamaica is often affected by tropical storms, causing power outage problems for its 2.8 million citizens. Using the Ventyx solution, JPS will establish an integrated transmission & distribution system that will enable it to rapidly restore energy services to its customers and lessen the impact of future storms.
“When confronted by storms such as Hurricane Sandy, which affected power supply to tens of thousands of residents, restoring electricity services as quickly and efficiently as possible is essential to the welfare of Jamaican citizens,” said Kelly Tomblin, President & CEO of JPS. “With Ventyx, we know we are getting the number one, industry-proven solution used by the world’s largest transmission and distribution providers to restore power quickly and minimize the impact of outages for our customers.”
JPS has relied on the Ventyx CIS solution for more than 15 years. With this new agreement, the utility is expanding its CIS implementation and adding the Ventyx mobile workforce management and outage management systems to provide an integrated, end-to-end outage restoration solution. As a result, JPS personnel will be able to more quickly locate customer outages, identify root causes, dispatch crews to repair the outages and verify restoration with customers, improving reliability, reducing downtime and enhancing customer service.
“Network outages are what every utility tries to avoid, but sometimes they’re unavoidable,” said Rick Nicholson, vice president, transmission and distribution solutions, Ventyx. “The impact of energy outages can be significant, and there is always pressure on utilities to reduce outage duration and frequency, as well as keep customers better informed during outages. With Ventyx, Jamaica Public Service can be assured they are implementing the latest, most advanced outage restoration solution based on more than 30 years of deep domain experience to improve the availability, performance and reliability of its power supply.”
JPS has worked for more than 90 years to satisfy Jamaica’s energy needs, growing from a modest network serving fewer than 4,000 customers to become the sole distributor of electricity in Jamaica with a customer base of close to 600,000. JPS meets the energy needs of the citizens of Jamaica with generation capacity that exceeds 620 megawatts from 27 generating units including eight hydropower plants and one wind farm, as well as 54 substations and approximately 14,000 kilometers of distribution and transmission lines.
