The Azurest Cambridge consortium, if given the final go ahead to deliver this US$650M project ( frankly I don’t think they will ) which will see 360MW of electricity being placed on the national grid, will see very few local jobs.
The consortium is planning on using floating barges built by Waller Marine at their plant in Texas and these will be then be shipped to Jamaica and then hooked up to our grid. This means that during the construction phase, there will be virtually no jobs for Jamaicans, since the bulk of the work will all be done in the USA.
The only jobs I see will be a local substation fitted with step up transformers, switch gears and few meters of transmission lines to take it from the transformer to JPS grid.
There may be a small administrative building constructed for some engineers, plant manager and administrative persons, but the amount of jobs involved here and the expenditure will be a mere drop in the bucket out of the US$650M, the entire project is expected to cost.
At the same time JPS will have no choice but to give up close to 300MW of its generation facility, which more than likely will result in massive job losses for engineers, technicians etc.
I see the Hunts Bay plant being virtually closed, as this is where some of the most inefficient generators are located and this would mean big savings for JPS. The plant will not be closed in its entirety, instead I envisioned it will be kept in a standby mode, where it can easily be started up, should the new plants have problems at some point in the future and cannot deliver the energy required unto the grid.
Now keeping a plant in standby mode and keeping , transformers, switch-gear, fuel supply, spares etc comes at a cost that must be paid for by someone. This stranded cost must be borne by the consumer and so I see JPS leveling a charge on the price of the energy being sold to them, by whoever wins the final rights to supply this 360 MW of power for this “stand-by” capacity.
Most consumers are not aware of this and see only the pronouncement of the Minister and are lead to believe that by starting up this plant, we are suddenly going to see electricity rates at US $0,18 – $0,20 per KWH.
I challenge the JPS to counter by arguments above.
Filed under: Energy |
Warren's Blog 
I think I am a bit off here, because the power barges will be equipped with their own step up transformers and Switchgear and so that means even less construction work will take pace in Jamaica than I initially had thought.
The amount of money that will come into the local economy from this US$650M investment, will me next to nothing, when compared to the overall size of the project.
With Azurest out of the runnings this no longer a concern.