Mission Transmission: JPS Rebuilds Backbone of the Grid in St. Elizabeth

(Kingston – January 18, 2026)  As part of the critical “last mile” of electricity restoration efforts following the passage of Category 5 Hurricane Melissa, JPS has been undertaking extensive work to rebuild its transmission network – the backbone of the electricity grid.

The disclosure was made at a meeting between the JPS leadership team and Councillors from the St. Elizabeth Municipal Corporation on Wednesday January 14.

The transmission system, which carries high-voltage electricity from power plants to substations across the Island, suffered tremendous damage when the hurricane made landfall on October 28 last year.

President and CEO of JPS, Hugh Grant, revealed that over the past couple of weeks, hundreds of line workers have been assigned to focus specifically on restoring transmission belts across the western parishes, with just over 200 line workers assigned to the breadbasket parish.

“There is an order to how our remaining customers will be onboarded,” Grant said. “We first have to fix the transmission lines, which take power to the substations. Once the substations are energized, they step down the power to a voltage that can be safely distributed to the communities,” he explained.

Grant noted that in St. Elizabeth alone, over twenty miles of transmission lines are being rerouted, repaired or rebuilt to restore power to the remaining sections of the parish.  “Several spans of our transmission lines run through hilly and mountainous terrain,” he highlighted. “It is labour-intensive and time-consuming. But our crews have been working 24/7 to get the network up and running, because the energization of these lines is critical to our restoration strategy in the west,” he said.

Challenges amidst the progress

While acknowledging the progress made by teams in the parish, the JPS CEO was careful to note that some sections of the transmission belt will take longer than others.

“The fact is that a lot of our transmission lines are located in remote areas,” the President and CEO said. “There are times when teams experience challenges getting the heavy-duty vehicles and equipment to the worksites, but they have been finding creative ways to get the job done. We have literally been pulling out all the stops, because we are cognizant of the fact that some of our customers have been out of electricity for more than two months now and, quite frankly, they are our priority,” Grant assured.

The meeting, led by Chairman of the St. Elizabeth Municipal Corporation, Mayor of Black River, Councillor Richard Solomon, culminated with members getting an update on the current restoration status of their respective divisions and the plans to restore additional customers.