PM To Meet With Mexican Electricity Supplier Over Power Outages

Tonight, we begin the news with a recurrent issue that has become a serious concern for anyone who does not have access to a generator – power outage. Earlier today parts of the country experienced a power outage that lasted almost six hours. But while Belize Electricity Limited has reasoned that load-shedding, which is even distribution of the power outages, is necessary to maintain the stability of the national grid, it did not offer a reason for the extended blackout. The outage was beyond annoying, especially for people whose job sites and homes are not equipped with generators to beat the heat. B.E.L. has not given notices of the continuous “load-shedding”, which suggests that the outages are not planned. It mentioned in a notice that its teams continue to work to restore power with the help of its Westlake gas turbine. Prime Minister John Briceno says he will be northbound on Saturday to meet with CFE representatives in Cancun, Mexico.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“BEL’s mandate is transmission and distribution and I know that in many instances, BEL was trying to also produce energy, but that’s not their mandate. What has failed is the process in the previous government with the PUC and I know that the PUC and BEL have always been having this struggle and my message to both of them is we have to stop this foolishness and we need to be able to work together and I believe that we’re seeing that now. The PUC, BEL and the Ministry of Energy all have to be able to work together. So on Saturday, after the funeral of the late Honourable Mike Espat then I’ll fly to Cancun to meet with AMLO and officials from CFE to see how they’d be able to stop the blackouts in Belize. As the CEO of BEL has explained, we have two engines that are going to be commissioned. One is this week, which is about 30 megawatts and once we do that, then we would be able to hold out own. Fortunately, we have already bought a 21 megawatt [engine] that is already stationed in San Pedro. That should be commissioned by the end of the month. Once we have that, that would give us a capacity of about 51 megawatts of electricity. It means that is CFE would need to cut off Belize, these generators could take over without anybody losing electricity and then once CFE can provide to us then we can shut down these engines and get again from Mexico. I know some people ask why would we buy from the Mexicans. We buy from the Mexicans because it is cheaper than using the diesel engines. So we have a plan. I understand the frustration. Myself get upset when my house gets blackout because my house gets blackout too.”

 

Reporter

“You don’t have a generator?

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I don’t have a generator (chuckles) so I understand the frustration and it has a direct impact on all the work that we’ve been doing these three years, in tourism, the economy, the call centres, in agriculture, production, so we cannot afford this.”