San Pedro Undergoes 14 Hour Power Outage  

On Wednesday, residents of San Pedro underwent a fourteen-hour power outage. This came amidst tourism high season, forcing hotels that were able to use generators to accommodate guests, while smaller hotels made do without. In a press conference today, B.E.L. C.E.O. John Mencias said the most recent outage was caused by faulty equipment. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with the story.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

Amidst the tourism high season, Belize’s premier tourist destination underwent a grueling thirteen-hour power outage. What began at ten twenty a.m. on Wednesday, lasted until the early hours of Thursday morning in some areas. This power outage was not the first residents of the island experienced recently, as just a few weeks ago, power supply to the island was cut. This was caused by a submarine cable, which supplies energy to the area, surpassing its max capacity. To protect the cable, the feed from it was temporarily dropped by Belize Electricity Limited. At a press briefing held by the energy providers, BEL CEO, John Mencias expanded on the events that caused the breach to occur.

 

John Mencias, C.E.O., Belize Electricity Ltd

“So about three or four weeks ago. We had power interruptions.  I think it occurred on Saturday.  A power interruption in San Pedro. It affected feeder to San Pedro, which is the portion of the feed the system that feeds to the north where most of the resorts are. That lasted for probably an hour to two the most. And the reason for that poor interruption is that the cable, the capacity of the single submarine cable that feeds the island was breached, meaning that demand on the island surpassed the capacity of the cable. The cable is rated for somewhere in the region of seventeen megawatts just above,  and the demand in San Pedro went to seventeen point six megawatts. And we move quickly.  To protect the cable.  And that is why we dropped a feeder to out there. But afterwards, what we did, Is that we got in contact with various resort owners. We asked them if they could go on their standby generators when they did. So that reduced the demand for electricity in San Pedro and we were able to reduce supply below the capacity limit of the cable.”

 

Mencia said that the high demand in San Pedro continued for about two weeks, causing larger hotel owners to rely on personal generators. Mencias said that eventually the levels normalized, and the company was able to meet the demand once again.  Yesterday, however, the power supply was cut off once again. This time, because of malfunctioning equipment.

 

John Mencias

“However, yesterday early in the morning, we started to encounter, voltage fluctuations at or Mascal substation, which supplies San Pedro.  And when we further investigated on site we found that there was leakage and there was smoking of one of the major components of the transformer. And we had to move quickly to protect the transformer. And we had to drop the entire circuit that feeds San Pedro. That is from ten twenty. We realized very quickly that we could not do anything about fixing the transformer in the meantime and we moved quickly to deploy a mobile transformer. That we have in place to the Mascal substation.”

 

After several hours, BEL employees were finally able to replace the faulty transformer and restore power to the island.

 

John Mencias

“We started to move right away. It took us about two and a half to three hours to dismantle that mobile substation. I say transformer. It’s actually a full substation. It was by mile eight the George Price Highway. It took us another five hours to transport that because it is huge and wide. It could not go through the normal route to Mascal. It had to go all the way up to Carmelita and then down along the old Northern Highway. And even two of the bushings on that mobile substation broke. Had it not been for that, we would have been able to get back San Pedro online by about nine thirty last night. Remember, from ten twenty in the morning, we up to then, we actually got back online until forty-eight minutes after midnight, which is this morning.”

 

Mencias said that the company is going to repair the transformer that caused the power outage as the mobile substation used to restore power is just a temporary solution and is at max capacity.

 

John Mencias

“What we’re doing now, we have brought in some help from a contractor based in Guatemala who specializes in fixing those components. I think he should be here today. One of their representatives is here today. And we hope to get the transformer back in service within the next three to four weeks. But in the meantime, the mobile substation is capable of supplying the capacity out there. I will see the demand out there. I will say, though, that mobile substation is at its capacity limit, too, so we will have to continue to manage the man in San Pedro. So that is the San Pedro situation. We also had a transmission line failure. Go to that before the day before that.”

 

Among the issues with the equipment, BEL’s largest power supplier CFE has been unable to provide power to Belize, resulting in several power outages across the country. Minister of Tourism and Diaspora relations, Anthony Mahler said that he is hopeful the issue can be rectified soon.

 

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism & Diaspora Relations

“Hotels. The bigger ones do, yes. It is problematic for us, but. We had a discussion in cabinet yesterday about it, and BEL is working feverishly to try to rectify the situation. It’s not the best situation. We’re still in high season right now, per se. We believe that we’ll get the solutions implemented pretty soon.”

 

Reporter

“But we see these constant blackouts happening, and they may continue because of Mexico’s load shedding. Is there anything being done to ensure that tourists don’t have to endure this?”

 

Anthony Mahler

“We’re talking to Mexico as well. And so hopefully this can be rectified sooner rather than later.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.