PM Briceño Talks Electricity with President of Mexico  

Prime Minister John Briceño met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday when several issues were discussed. One of the priority topics during their meeting was the supply of power by CFE Mexico to Belize. As Belizeans are aware, the Belize Electricity Limited has had to undertake numerous load shedding exercises because CFE has indicated that it is unable to supply Belize during its peak hours. This has left many Belizeans across the country in darkness for scheduled periods. According to Prime Minister Briceño he was in Mexico on a medical trip with his wife when he reached out to the President’s office to get a phone call with him. The president’s office arranged for them to meet, and a discussion was had about what can be done to address Belize’s energy crisis. We asked PM Briceño about that meeting when we caught up with him this afternoon in Corozal.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Well first of all I went on a private visit to Mexico but I figured that when I was on my way I would try to get a hold of him and we get along very well so I was hoping to see if he can help us to  stop the load shedding in Belize. But I think Mr Mencias rightly pointed out, the seed was planted ten years ago and the previous government did nothing. We have been doing something. We have managed to convince the Saudi to lend us seventy- two million dollars to do a sixty megawatt solar plant. But this us not something you say here is seventy two million dollars, nobody gives that US. There is a whole process and we have been working with them and one of the Saudi company that will be able to come in to build the first twenty. What Mr. Mencias explained to us is that the grid can’t hold sixty megawatts in one spot so we have to break it up in three twenty megawatts plant. The first one is going to be built by Bomba. We expect that will be commissioned by July August of next year. We have been working with the World Bank, borrowing about a hundred million dollars to be able to set up a battery bank. With this battery Bank there is certain times when CFE energy goes to two three cents a kilowatt, around two three o’clock in the morning when there is hardly any use for it so we could buy fortwo or three cents and store it in these battery banks and send it to the grid with the hopes of maintaining the price and hopefully with time to be able to reduce the price.”