The Jamaica Public Service Company

Business View Caribbean 3 ries of mergers, buy-outs, and amalgamations of, and with, other electric companies on the island. Finally, in 1966, JPS was granted an All-Island Electricity License by the Jamaican government. Four years later, the gov- ernment decided to take over the formerly privately- owned company and acquired a controlling interest in it. JPS continued to be publicly owned until 2001, when the Mirant Corporation bought 80 percent of the com- pany’s operating shares, leaving the government with 19 percent, and minority shareholders with the re- maining one percent. In 2007, Marubeni Caribbean Power Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Marubeni Corporation of Japan, purchased Mirant’s majority share, and finally, in 2011, Korea East West Power entered into an agreement with Marubeni for joint ownership of the company. Today, JPS provides service to more than 603,350 resi- dential and business customers through an integrated system that includes several power plants, a transmis- sion and distribution network, and customer service offices across the island. While JPS owns and operates a number of fossil fuel plants that use Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) and Automotive Diesel Oil (ADO) to create elec- tricity, eight hydro-electric plants, and one wind farm, it doesn’t actually produce all of the island’s electric power (which peaks at 650 megawatts, a bit less than is used by the city of Philadelphia). AT A GLANCE WHO: The Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. WHAT: An integrated electric utility firm and the sole distributor of electricity in Jamaica WHERE: Headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica with customer service offices throughout the island WEBSITE : www.myjpsco.com