The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) is reporting that, as at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, more than 80 per cent, approximately 550,000 of the company’s 690,000 customers, have had power restored following last night’s islandwide outage.The light and power company says every effort is being made to restore supply to all customers as safely and quickly as possible.JPS CEO Hugh Grant, in a video message posted on the company’s social media, indicated that lightning may have contributed to the outage, which JPS previously said was the result of a system failure.“What we do know, as of this time, is that during this incident there was significant lightning activity in the Corporate Area, particularly in the vicinity of some of our major generating stations, our major transmission facilities, and our major substations,” said Grant.Sections of the Corporate Area have been experiencing rainfall since yesterday.“We have made progress in the restoration of the island, whereby we have restored several parishes in the western part of the island. Parishes such as Hanover, Westmoreland, St James, and Trelawny have been substantially restored. We have restored some customers in the central parishes, such as St Catherine and Clarendon, and we have also restored customers on the eastern side of the island in the parish of Kingston and St Andrew,” said Grant.“We are committed to getting to the bottom of what transpired, and we will keep you updated,” he pointed out.Meanwhile, Energy Minister Daryl Vaz has called an emergency meeting with JPS for noon to discuss the incident, and a press briefing will be held following the talks.“It is expected that the remaining affected customers will have power restored by early this morning,” said Vaz in a post on X, formerly Twitter.“I have been closely monitoring the situation all night and will continue to do so until full restoration is completed. I commit to keeping the nation advised and updated on this UNACCEPTABLE SITUATION,” added Vaz.In a subsequent media statement, Vaz stated that the outage and protracted delay in restoration cannot be tolerated. “JPS must do better. A thorough investigation into the outage will take place.”"I have advised the leadership of the JPS that the Government of Jamaica finds the all-island electricity outage to be totally unacceptable and expects that electricity will be restored to all customers safely and as quickly as possible,” said Vaz.He added that it is important to determine the cause of the outage and to limit the chance of a recurrence.“The Government recognises the significant inconvenience the all-island outage has caused to people across the island and has instructed the JPS to leave no stone unturned in ensuring restoration takes place as quickly as possible.”Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.