Jamaica Public Service customers saw a seven percent electricity rate increase land on their December bills, covering Novembers consumption, and the utility says that figure was already a compromise. Left unspread, JPS told the Jamaica Observer, the same underlying cost increase would have worked out closer to fifty percent in a single month.
The Office of Utilities Regulation approved the increase after Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm that struck on October 28, 2025, disrupted the supply of lower-cost fuel and knocked out access to cheaper renewable generation. JPS had to lean on more expensive fuel and less efficient generating units to keep the grid running. At the same time, electricity sales fell by roughly 30 percent as customers lost supply altogether, which meant the fixed costs of running the generation system had to be spread across fewer paying units, pushing per-unit charges up further.
For an average residential customer using 165 kWh a month, the increase added roughly $655 to what was previously about a $9,000 bill. The OUR allowed only a portion of the true cost increase to be applied immediately, with the rest deferred and recovered gradually over the following months, a decision Energy Minister Daryl Vaz said reflected an expectation that generation costs and consumption patterns could take up to six months to normalise.
JPS has pointed out that it does not keep these charges. Fuel and independent power producer costs are regulated pass-throughs, paid directly to suppliers including Petrojam, Excelerate Energy and companies such as Jamaica Energy Partners, and the utility says it is still on the hook for the full amount even where it cannot yet collect all of it from customers. The company has proposed a fuel rate stabilising mechanism to smooth these swings in future rather than letting them land on customers in a single billing cycle, though the OUR has not yet formally approved it.
Vaz, for his part, used the moment to press a separate point: that JPS’s underlying operating licence needs revisiting so that a future shock does not force the same choice between a large one-time increase and a deferred one, regardless of who is right about the cause.
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