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John Avery says BEL blackouts are “no conspiracy”

GeneralJohn Avery says BEL blackouts are “no conspiracy”
Amid public suspicion that the recent spate of power outages are intentionally being engineered by the Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) to punish consumers because the company has not gotten a rate increase, John Avery, the chairman of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), called a press conference this afternoon to assure the media that “there is no conspiracy.”
  
The public has already been advised that as of July 15, today, rolling blackouts could take effect, but when we asked Avery if there is any mechanism in place to forewarn consumers, he said that there was not, because the situation remains “fluid” – meaning that they are not sure when particular blocks on the national grid would be shut down at a particular time.
  
Belizeans already got a taste of sudden and extended power outages this past weekend. Between Friday and Monday, consumers across the country had to suffer a string of outages, beginning with a five-hour-long spell starting on Friday night and continuing into Monday morning. BEL issued statements subsequently attributing the blackouts to a series of mishaps within its network; however, the events have sparked speculation in some quarters that the outages were deliberate.
  
At the time of the company’s AGM last year, the representative of BEL majority shareholder, Fortis, had threatened blackouts in the face of the PUC’s objections to BEL’s rate increase proposals.
  
Speaking with the media at the PUC’s office in Belize City this afternoon, Avery accepted that there is a high level of distrust for BEL in light of past statements, but he told the media, “As far as we have assessed there is no conspiracy.”
  
Back in June, the country suffered a nationwide blackout, which BEL said was due to Mexico cutting its supply to the country. In fact, BEL claims that Mexico’s state company, Comisión Federal de Electridad (CFE), could not guarantee supply from May to September.
  
Avery said that if CFE were to cut power because of impending maintenance work, Belize would be first to get dropped.
  
To make matters worse, in-country supplies are short, with Hydro Maya reportedly being down and BEL’s 25MW gas turbine being offline for part replacement.
  
In today’s press conference, Avery said that General Electric personnel have been in Belize trying to fix the problem with the gas turbine, located at West Lake on the Western Highway.
  
Amandala reported in our midweek edition that Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of National Emergency Management, Colonel George Lovell, had told us that he had signed off on a supplementary power purchase agreement late Monday evening with Belize Aquaculture Limited (BAL), a Barry Bowen company, for up to 8 MW of power, additional to the 15 MW it had been contracted to provide to BEL using heavy fuel.
  
Because the matter is being treated as a national emergency, there was no bidding process and Lovell’s ministry went ahead and brokered the deal, which BEL and the PUC have subsequently vetted, Avery advised.
  
With BEL and Hydro Maya off line, said Avery, Belize cannot meet its own demand, and if Mexico drops us, it means certain feeders—except for essential feeders such as the one that covers the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital—would have to be dropped.
  
For those establishments who can afford to use a backup generator, Avery estimates it would cost roughly 60 cents per kilowatt hour to power up using that alternative – given that the cost of diesel just shot past $7.00 a gallon at midnight last Friday.
  
He advises consumers to cut back the demand for power by taking steps such as not leaving appliances plugged in unnecessarily and turning down the dial on their refrigerators.
  
Even though it appears common sense that more blackouts plus cutting down on power usage would equal lower light bills for consumers, Avery told us that it is “a double-edged sword,” because rates are set on the assumption that BEL will make a certain level of sales, and if sales drop, BEL can in the future apply for adjustments in the rates to compensate for the loss in sales.
  
He also said that since the rates consumers are paying are based on June 2008 figures, when oil prices were well over US$100 a barrel, BEL has been collecting much more for power than it has been paying to its suppliers. At the end of May, BEL owed consumers $24 million.
  
It is unclear when that would actually be rebated to consumers, since the PUC and BEL are currently in court over that and other issues having to do with recent tariff decisions.
  
Avery said that in the event that the cost of power – a direct pass through to consumers – increases, the rebate may be applied to offset those increases.
  
While it is clear that consumers have to brace for blackouts in the weeks and months ahead, it remains unclear when the matter of rates and rebates will actually be sorted out.

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