_{Photo: Chalillo Dam}

BEL pleads for power conservation

by Kristen Ku

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. May 30, 2024

In the past few weeks, Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) successfully brought online its upgraded gas turbine at the Mile 8 facility, which has helped minimize the need for load shedding. However, there have been new issues affecting service.

Today at BEL headquarters, the media was invited to discuss the ongoing electricity crisis with the company’s senior managers, and how unpredictable keeping steady electricity can be.

Dawn Samson-Nunez, the General Manager of Employee and Corporate Services, explained that the extreme weather conditions, particularly intense heat and dry weather, have significantly impacted the electricity infrastructure.

Specifically, damage to transmission systems, especially in northern regions like Corozal, has been a primary cause of outages. These damages disrupt the supply of electricity from Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), requiring increased reliance on local hydroelectric facilities.

As a result, this increased demand on hydro facilities has led to a reduction in water levels, further straining the electricity supply.

BEL faces additional challenges with its independent power producers such as Belcogen.

“Belcogen has notified us that they’re experiencing some technical difficulties with their infrastructure. They have indicated to us that they should be offline for about two weeks,” Nunez explained.

Similarly, BAPCOL (Blair Athol Power Company Limited), another power supplier, has urgent maintenance needs that will take one of their units offline for two days at a time, affecting the overall power supply.

In an effort to reduce load shedding, BEL’s goal is to bring the gas turbine in San Pedro online by June 15, which will provide an additional 20 megawatts of power and offer some relief.

However, with hydroelectric dams reducing their output due to low water levels, the situation remains challenging.

“From now to June 15th, what we’re looking at is trying to manage the varying independent power producers across the country to ensure that we can serve as much customers as possible. What we’re doing is to try to minimize the load shedding. We are working with our large customers to ask them to provide support, so they would go on generators so that we minimize the load shedding,” shared Karique Marin, the Manager of Distribution Planning and Engineering.

Currently, CFE is supplying BEL with 40 megawatts during the day and 15 megawatts at night, which has helped reduce the strain on local resources. BEL is saving internal resources as much as possible to prepare for any potential reduction in supply from CFE. The additional gas turbine, expected to be operational by June 15, will further support this effort.

BEL is calling on large customers and the general community to similarly support the energy conservation efforts. Simple actions such as turning off unused equipment, reducing the use of air conditioning, and combining activities into fewer rooms can make a significant difference.