Will Gas Turbine Really Solve B.E.L.’s Energy Crisis?

Scheduled power interruptions continued today, as B.E.L. attempts to get a handle on a countrywide energy crunch.  On Thursday, Chief Executive Officer John Mencias held a press conference to fully explain the situation that the country is presently faced with.  According to the C.E.O., an interim solution is the use of gas turbines outside of Belize City and in San Pedro.  But is that temporary fix cost effective and environmentally friendly?  Tonight, we’ll look at the gas turbine alternative and what it means for additional energy being sent to the national grid to make up for the existing shortfall.  Here’s News Five’s Isani Cayetano.

 

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

Belize remains in the throes of a major energy crisis, as the demand for electricity exceeds the available supply in the country.  This is resulting in a significant bottleneck in the supply of energy resources to the local economy.  This predicament has been brought about in part by excessive use of energy without adequate measures for conservation and efficiency.  It is also triggered by limited energy resources.  At two o’clock this afternoon, parts of Belize City were cut off, as load shedding continues.  It happened at a time when there a considerable increase in consumption.

 

Omereyon Fregene, Manager of Energy Supply, B.E.L.

“Peak energy supply is really capacity.  At certain times of the day, depending on the times of the year, our customers coincidentally all require a certain capacity during that time interval.  So peak capacity is when, for example, in Belize, at two p.m., in the afternoon, children are returning back from school, office workers are returning back from lunch.  So you have that sudden rush, an increase in capacity that is required.  It is not consistent, it’s for short intervals, but BEL has to make sure that that capacity is available when our customers need it.”

 

…and the utility company is unable to do so.  Blackouts continue as Belize Electricity Ltd. seeks to address the problem.  Doing so, as a long-term solution, involves a combination of increasing energy production, improving energy efficiency, and promoting conservation efforts.  In the interim, BEL is looking to bring online a gas turbine that is located in the West Lake community.

 

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

“Immediately, what we have in place is that we are upgrading our gas turbine, as I said, at mile eight, and that is expected to come back online by early next week.  It was originally at nineteen megawatts, it’s being upgraded to thirty megawatts.  So next week, thirty megawatts of additional capacity is coming online.  Once that comes online, we will be able to bridge the generation shortage that we are experiencing right now.”

 

A gas turbine is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine.

 

Mario Vellos, Supt. Operations, Belize Electricity Ltd.

“The gas turbine is basically an aircraft engine, it was derived from the aero industry and it uses diesel fuel to burn, mixed with air and that drives the gas turbine.  The gas turbine, in turn, drives the generator.  The generator is synchronized onto the grid and power is produced to the grid. This plant, when we bought this plant, we bought twenty megawatts of power but in it better days we’ve seen up to twenty-two megawatts of power from this gas turbine.  That would represent close to or maybe one-fifth of our grid right now, one-fifth of the total power of this grid.”

 

According to Chief Executive Officer John Mencias, BEL will also be installing a gas turbine in San Pedro in a few weeks.

 

John Mencias

“And then, by the end of May we’ll be adding another twenty megawatts of capacity gas turbine in San Pedro.  So that means that by the end of May, compared to where we are now, we’re putting back, or we’re installing on the grid, fifty megawatts of additional capacity.  That will put us in a position to be able to meet peak demand well beyond the next twelve months, and more than likely up to about eighteen months.”

 

It’s an interim solution that’s very costly.  Gas turbines run on diesel, lots of it.  In speaking with Mario Vellos, Superintendent of Operations at BEL, he gave us an idea of just how much fossil fuel is consumed when the gas turbine is in use.

 

Isani Cayetano

“This, I believe, consumes a lot of fuel to run.  Explain that to us, perhaps relative to any other source of electricity that’s being brought on to the grid.”

 

Mario Vellos

“This turbine when running at full load, this would consume, to make it simple, like twenty-five gallons of fuel per minute at full load.  So you can calculate that in an hour to see how much fuel we use in one hour.  I think, for a day, depending on how we run the unit, we can burn up to thirty thousand gallons of fuel.”

 

All that fuel consumption will not come cheap.

 

John Mencias

“There is a very important implication to putting in place these gas turbines.  These gas turbines will help us to overcome the current capacity shortage that we have, but they burn diesel.  And to put that in perspective for you, just the cost of the diesel, of running the machines on diesel, per kilowatt hour, ranges between forty-five cents to about sixty cents, sometimes higher.  You all know what is the price of electricity, right?  Pre-tax, the average price is about forty cents.  So when we’re running those gas turbines, we’re already losing money.  There is a net difference of about anywhere from twenty cents to up to thirty cents or more.”

 

That difference will inevitably create an entirely new challenge for the already overwhelmed company.

 

John Mencias

“What does that do?  It pushes up the cost of power.  We have to find cash to pay for the fuel, for the additional cost of power and that cash is important for the investments that we need to make in reinforcing, and extending, and strengthening our transmission system.  That cash is important to put a second transformer up at Maskall, for putting additional transformers throughout the country.  It’s important actually, we need that cash to be able to install the second submarine cable to San Pedro.”

 

Isani Cayetano for News Five.