PM Says Mexico Pledges Increased Power Supply to Belize

Prime Minister John Briceño has returned from the historic swearing-in of Mexico’s first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum. One of their discussions centered around Mexico’s power supply to Belize. Briceño highlighted that Belize is already consuming the amount of energy in 2024 that was projected for 2028, thanks to our economic growth and the increased need for cooling appliances during long heat waves. President Sheinbaum assured Briceño that she would uphold the gentleman’s agreement made with her predecessor, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to maintain the current power supply to Belize. However, their conversation took an interesting turn, exploring the possibility of Belize purchasing power from ships that sell electricity. This could not only help us meet our energy shortfalls but also open opportunities for Belize to buy and sell power.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“There’s a group in Belize now that they’ve been talking to another company outside of Belize that they have these ships that have, that have, um, these huge plants. So, they’re saying that they can contract this. They have already signed an agreement with this group, and they can bring the board. But the board produces 80 megawatts. We can’t use it. A good thing about the agreement that we have with CFE, we can buy and we can sell. So our idea was to go to them and pitch the idea. Listen, it will be far easier for Belize to bring the ship to Belize. We use what we need and then we send over the rest to you. At a very small margin to pay for the expenses. And they were quite excited because, like us. Quintana Roo depends pretty much solely on tourism. Last year they had over eighteen million visitors, so they can’t afford the blackouts just like us. So we had a very good meeting. We set up a team that would comprise people from  BEL, Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Finance, I think PUC to meet with their technical people to start to work on how we can, how we can do this.”