Editorial | Case for underground power lines

Hugh Grant, the CEO of Jamaica Public Service (JPS), the light and power company, is right about the tremendous cost if the island were to run its overhead power lines underground.

His solution: consider subterranean grids in selective areas.

“We can look at some major corridors or … some critical facilities and then partner to figure out how we could selectively(go) underground ,” Mr Grant told reporters a week ago.

That is clearly a possible approach, and one that ought to be considered even as Jamaica rebuilds its power grid in the western third of the island, after the system was battered by Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5, in late October.

But as a first step.

The larger question to be asked is whether Jamaica can afford, over the longer term, not to have the larger portion of underground (which, as Mr Grant pointed out, can be up to ten times more expensive as having them overhead), as part of its climate resilience effort. A matter to be debated, if the subterranean option were agreed upon, is who would pay for it and how; and in what timeframe it would be implemented.

Additionally, determining whether shifting from overhead power lines would make economic sense, also requires robust analysis. This newspaper believes that logic, and economics, are clearly cantering in favour of the subterranean system.

On the initial count, Hurricane Melissa caused the direct death of at least 25 people. It damaged or destroyed over 130,000 homes, affecting around 900,000 people.

BADLY BATTERED

Infrastructure, including the power grid, in seven parishes, especially those in the west and southwest of Jamaica, was badly battered. At one stage, over half a million people were without power. Nearly 200,000 are still without. It will not be until January that all customers are reconnected.

The loss of power for extended periods doesn’t just negatively affect the comfort of individuals. It has a profound impact, too, on industry and commerce.

Indeed, it is not only battered buildings and shattered machinery that have brought the economy of western Jamaica essentially to a standstill. The absence of power was a major contributor that will help to push the overall cost of the storm to well beyond the US$9-US$10 billion that has been estimated for damage to physical infrastructure. Reliable power is critical to the operation of modern economies.

The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) has projected that the economy will decline, in real terms, by between 11 per cent and 13 per cent in the quarter to December 31. Over the fiscal year that ends March 31, GDP will contract by as much as six per cent, the PIOJ estimated.

It will cost JPS, the government has reported, US$350 million to rebuild its grid in the parishes affected by the storm. And recall that Melissa had little impact on the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA), where a quarter of Jamaica’s population lives and is the island’s critical commercial centre. Notably, JPS’s Melissa repair bill is in addition to the US$50 million it cost when Hurricane Beryl, a Category 4 storm, which skirted the island’s south coast last year.

CAN’T ASSUME

Unfortunately, we can’t assume that a storm of Melissa’s ferocity is unlikely to visit Jamaica again in the near future; that it was one of those long horizon events. Climate change is making extreme weather events – storms, floods, droughts and so on – increasingly frequent.

Indeed, in the last decade (2015-2025) 10 Atlantic hurricanes reached the maximum Category 5 status, three of them this year. Half of 10, including Melissa, made landfall. In the previous decade, there were four Category 5 hurricanes, all of them in 2005.

So, it’s odds-on that more storms like Melissa and Beryl are on the near horizon, and of which will quite possibly hit Jamaica. The island could find itself in an interminable cycle of the destruction and rebuilding of its infrastructure, including the power grid. Or it can build them back more resiliently, taking into account the impact of global warming and climate change.

In the case of power, hardening the infrastructure would include running power lines underground. The analysis of doing this can’t only be the immediate expenditure and the higher cost of maintenance. It must also take account of the projected future post-disaster rebuilding, as well as the broader cost to the economy when there is no power.

In that regard, the operating licence for whoever, in 18 months, has the concession for the transmission and distribution of electricity, could contain a clause for, say, 10-year programme to make power lines subterranean in all key economic centres and on critical transmission routes.

It can’t be beyond the concessionaires, the government and the utility regulator to design a mechanism for such a system that spreads the cost, and repayment, in such a fashion that the economy still has access to electricity at a competitive price.

By the way, the cost multiple used by Mr Grant for subterranean powerlines is at the most expensive end of the technology scale, which Jamaica doesn’t need to employ.