Energy Minister calls Jamaica electricity blackout ‘unacceptable’; orders probe

Energy Minister Daryl Vaz says he expects to update the country on Saturday following what he described as an “unacceptable” all-island power outage that left Jamaica in darkness for nearly two hours on Friday night.

Reports of widespread outages began emerging from several parishes shortly after 8:00 p.m., before Vaz posted “Island-wide blackout” on X, formerly Twitter, at 9:27 p.m.

In a later update at 10:37 p.m., Vaz said Jamaica Public Service (JPS) President Hugh Grant had reported that “all power stations [are] being restarted” and that “some customers have started being restored.”

He said restoration efforts would continue throughout the night.

The minister said recovery work is being carried out in parallel with an investigation already under way, but stressed that a “fulsome investigation” will be launched into the cause of the disruption.

JPS, the country’s sole electricity provider, said it had activated its incident command centre “in light of the system failure which took place tonight” and confirmed that it is investigating the cause of the outage.

The utility company serves approximately 700,000 customers across Jamaica, which has a population of nearly 2.8 million people.

JPS systems were significantly affected by Hurricane Melissa, which devastated parts of the island in October.

Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.