Editorial | Plan for underground power lines

There are few uglier sites to cityscapes than the webs of electricity distribution wires that often criss-cross utility poles before being attached to buildings.

Aesthetics apart, running power lines this way, in a country like Jamaica that is susceptible to hurricanes and other disasters, comes at a cost. Not infrequently, large segments of the power grid are damaged, with significant economic impact on social and economic life. Repair is usually not only expensive, but time-consuming. For instance, after Hurricane Ivan in 2004, it cost Jamaica Public Service (JPS), the monopoly electricity transmission and distribution company, well over J$1 billion to repair its battered transmission and distribution system, and large numbers of its customers were without power for several months. Therefore, having power lines underground is inherently safer.

Indeed, this was part of the context for then Prime Minister Edward Seaga floating the idea, in the wake of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, of Jamaica running all its utility lines below ground. Nothing much, at least with regard to electricity, has come of that plan, although there has been an increasing subterranean planning of fibre-optic cables by telecommunications providers.

Hope Pastures stand-off

The fact that Seaga did not further the discussion in the three decades since Gilbert is understandable. Placing utility lines underground is expensive business, which, stripped to the core, is essentially the dispute between JPS and many of the residents of Hope Pastures in St Andrew over how their homes should be attached to the electricity grid, of which we were reminded last week.

The light and power company disclosed that 23 of its customers in the community, presumably the hold-outs, were without power because they had failed to do what is required to connect their homes to overhead power lines. This is part of a broader legal battle on which the now chief justice, Brian Sykes, reserved judgment in the Supreme Court five months ago. Ninety-four residents sought a declaration from the court that JPS is obligated to maintain the underground electricity distribution arrangement in Hope Pastures and distribute power to its customers therefrom.

The original Hope Pastures homes were built nearly 60 years ago as a new suburban community where owners paid more for their residences than homes in nearby communities. Part of the reason for the price differential was the nature of the infrastructure, including underground electricity distribution lines rather than having wires running on poles overhead.

However, for nearly two decades, JPS and the community's citizens' association have been at loggerheads over the utility company's insistence on moving to the overhead system that is common across Jamaica. The old system, the company has argued, has outlived its useful life and is far too expensive to maintain. Its overhaul and modernisation would demand substantial investment by the residents, which they were reluctant to pay. So, JPS has run overhead wires in the community.

This newspaper makes no comment on the legal merits of the argument of either side of this dispute. This is a matter, ultimately, of contract law and what are the reasonable expectations of consumers, on one side, and the obligation of a service provider on the other. However, we suspect that Justice Sykes' ruling won't be the end of the matter.

However, we are sympathetic to the idea of having, where technically feasible, critical parts of the electricity transmission and distribution cables below ground. Cost, of course, becomes the issue, including, ultimately, who pays the bill.

This is a matter on which Jamaica should open a serious discussion and cost-benefit analyses, engaging utility companies, their regulators and consumers. Perhaps, if subterranean power lines are feasible, it will require, say, a 30-year transition. Maybe if such a discussion had happened after Gilbert, the Hope Pastures issue would by now be beyond debate, as well as many of the problems that have accompanied the several storms since then.