Government Advances Major Solar Projects to Cut Power Imports

In related news, Minister of Public Utilities Michel Chebat says the Government is advancing two major solar-energy projects aimed at reducing Belize’s dependence on imported electricity. The first is being financed through the Saudi Fund for Development. The original seventy-seven-million-US-dollar loan agreement, signed in August 2023, contemplated sixty megawatts of solar generation. The project has since been redesigned to include forty megawatts of solar power and a twenty-megawatt battery-storage system capable of storing eighty megawatt-hours of electricity.  Chebat also pointed to a separate project launched in January through an agreement involving BEL, the Government and the International Finance Corporation. That initiative seeks private developers to install up to eighty megawatts of utility-scale solar power at three or four locations across Belize.

Michel Chebat, Minister of Public Utilities: “There are actually two solar projects I think you’re asking about the Saudi one initially. The Saudi one unfortunately with the Saudis it has taken much longer to get the funds that are necessary but now that is already in process. No funds have yet been dispersed because they are speaking to the owners, engineers to be able to get the specifics so that the RFP can be drafted and sent out for procurement purposes. That’s one. The other project we’re working on is the 80 megawatts that we’re getting through with the assistance of the IFC. Back in March we had sent out an RFQ to get interest in it. We have, I think there are five companies that have been shortlisted and we’re anticipating that by October this year the RFP will be issued so that we can then move towards establishing these solar farms. So those are moving. And you spoke about solar and while he is a technical guy and he knows more than me and I will defer to him, we do understand that solar is not firm power and that is why we are getting the 40 megawatts of battery through the World Bank that we are going to be using to stabilize that and to be able to store the energy.”

Under the IFC-supported project, the selected private investors would finance, construct, own, operate and maintain the solar facilities for twenty-five years. The procurement is being conducted under the World Bank Group’s Scaling Solar programme, with the IFC serving as lead transaction adviser. The Government says the projects should increase local generation, strengthen the reliability of the national grid and reduce the country’s exposure to disruptions and rising costs associated with imported electricity.