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Prime Minister John Briceño says government is working to close Belize’s electricity supply gap and give households and businesses a more dependable source of power. Speaking with Love News, the Prime Minister outlined the country’s plan to address the shortfall and strengthen energy security. The issue has brought periods of load shedding, with BEL temporarily cutting electricity to selected areas when available supply cannot meet demand. The company says those controlled interruptions help protect the national grid from wider failure. Belize’s reliance on electricity from Mexico leaves the system particularly vulnerable when that supply is reduced or unexpectedly lost. Against that background, Briceño explained the measures being pursued to increase available power and reduce the risk of further disruptions.
John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “Belizeans are very aware that unfortunately because of lack of foresight previously we did not keep up with the demands of our use of energy in Belize and since we got in we’ve been working on getting that done and that is why we have this shortfall. We’ve been talking to, well we’ve already met with the World Bank yesterday where we spoke with Susana, one of the vice presidents of the World Bank, and making the point that many times you have faceless bureaucrats in Washington making decisions that have direct impact on us. Remember, Belize declared that we have an emergency that is a shortfall of electricity and because of that that has allowed us to be able to have BEL to meet with private companies to see who can provide electricity very fast and at a cheap price much lower than what we’re presently buying for. And the PUC has also signed on to it. The last time I spoke with Ambassador Young, he mentioned to me that they’ve signed on to a company that’s putting on 14 MW. That should be in line between September and January. There’s another group that is going to put in another 15 MW of solar and 15 MW of batteries. And then we have, I think it’s about another 15 or 20 megawatt to go to come online between Santander and BSI. All of that is going to be online by next early next year by the first six months of next year. Once we do that, we’ll be able to address all the needs that we have with electricity and at a lower price. So we believe that BEL can go to have a small profit next year and by the following year, we’ll be in as much better financial position that then we’ll be able to look at how we can be reduced, or we can be able to reduce the cost of energy to our citizens.”
Government’s response has included an emergency declaration under the electricity procurement regulations, allowing BEL to secure temporary generation capacity. BEL explained in September that the additional equipment at its Westlake facility was intended to support the grid during high demand or when another source becomes unavailable. The longer-term strategy also includes expanding solar generation. Briceño previously outlined a target of up to one hundred and twenty megawatts of additional solar power, alongside temporary generation to help bridge the immediate gap.
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