Customers of the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) will see a 1.6 per cent increase in their electricity bills generated after August 9.

The increase comes after a review of the 2023 JPS Annual Tariff Adjustment submission.

In a release yesterday, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) stated that the power company requested an initial overall non-fuel tariff adjustment of 13.2 per cent, which the regulator said would have resulted in a 0.8 per cent and 0.2 per cent increase for residential and RT40 customers, respectively, and a 2.5 per cent reduction in the average rates of commercial and industrial customers.

However, an analysis conducted by the OUR showed that the 13.2 per cent requested by JPS would have resulted in a 4.9 increase for all customers.

To reduce the percentage increase for customers, the OUR said it approved a 5.5 per cent increase on JPS’ 2022 approved Non-fuel Revenue Target, which translated to a 1.6 increase for customers.

JPS also requested that the annual revenue target for 2023 be set at J$55.1 billion. However, the OUR approved an annual revenue target of J$50.8 billion, which is J$4.3 billion less than the amount proposed by JPS.