Belize’s Power Demand Climbs as Mexico Signals Supply Cut

The demand for power is climbing, Mexico may soon send less electricity our way, and Belize could be looking at more planned outages. But Prime Minister John Briceño says government is working on short-term fixes to keep the lights on and prevent load shedding from becoming the new normal whenever CFE cuts supply.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“That has always been a problem since 2000 and 2024. Belize has always been growing exceedingly fast and likewise in southern parts of Mexico they are having the same problems. They should have had one point two gigawatts of electricity already online. But they are having a lot of problems. The plants have been built but now they are having problems with how they can get the natural gas to fire up those plants. So we are in conversation with them, but at the same time we are also taking our own precautions. We are happy it is raining. So the dams are starting to full up again. So we will be able to get more electricity from them. Then BEL signed up with a company to have a standby generator. The Generator should have been here towards the end of May, but because of the war in Iraq it has messed up shipping and that is why we have not gotten it by now. We are hoping that by the end of the month or next month that standby generator will be here. Once that is in Belize, so whenever there is any kind of load shedding we will be able to fire that up to ensure we don’t have any load shedding in Belize.”

 

BEL Prepares for Controlled Blackouts Amid Mexico Power Crisis

 

As the threat of electricity shortages looms, Belize Electricity Limited is bracing for a scenario many customers hope to avoid, that’s rolling blackouts during the evening hours. The warning comes after Mexico’s power provider, CFE, alerted BEL that growing demand on its own grid could force a reduction in electricity exports to Belize. In response, the utility says it is preparing contingency plans to keep the national grid stable, including controlled outages between 6:00 p.m. and midnight if supply levels fall short. At the same time, BEL is racing to boost local generation capacity, with a new twenty-four-megawatt mobile power plant in the works near Mile Eight on the George Price Highway. Earlier this month, Executive Chairman Lynn Young outlined how the company is preparing for the possibility that Belize may have to rely less on imported power and more on its own resources.

 

Lynn Young, Executive Chairman, Belize Electricity Limited

“We know  we know of the challenges that that, that’s happening in CFE and really and truly it’s not only CFE. Events throughout the world right now is driving up fuel prices. Logis- logistics problems with delivering fuel, there’s a lot of challenges there. What we have done is that we are renting about twenty megawatts of generation that we are putting in place at West Lake to cover us so that in the event CFE cannot supply, we can meet it. We had hoped to have that online this month, but again the war and stuff kinda caught up with us. Some of the deliveries that were supposed to happen, what happen it got caught up in that whole shipping problem. And so it’s late on delivery. So we expect to have that emergency power online around the mid to end of August. Once that comes online and we are not exposed, we won’t be as exposed to the CFE situation. We are also looking to try to meet with the IPPs, BABCO, Belcogen Santander, to see if there’s a way that we can enhance the in-country generation in the short term. And of course, you know we have some long-term projects in place to bring in grid-connected solar. So we’re taking the steps necessary to try to deal with the short term through the emergency power, and then we have this project that will deal with it in the long term.”

 

BEL said load shedding could affect sections of the Orange Walk, Corozal, Belize, Cayo, Stann Creek, and Toledo districts.

 

 

Ongoing Belize-Mexico Talks Aim to Avoid Power Disruptions

 

As Belize faces the threat of reduced power imports from Mexico, officials say they are staying in constant contact with CFE, Mexico’s state-owned electricity provider. Foreign Affairs CEO Oscar Arnold says Belize has been closely monitoring the situation and maintaining regular communication with Mexican authorities to manage any potential supply disruptions. He noted that during past periods of uncertainty, discussions with CFE often took place daily as electricity availability shifted.

 

Oscar Arnold, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

“I received a request from here in capital to engage CFE and to engage the Mexicans. And it was a touch and go. Every day at five to six, I would get a call from BEL, “Listen, this is what will happen and we will have outages.” And then we would engage the CFE personnel, especially the ones in Yucatan, because that is where they were generating the power. But it’s for us to understand that they also have some challenges. They also have growing demands on their end. We pay a premium, so it’s to their benefit as well to sell us, but it’s to manage local consumption as opposed to exporting kind of what we do here with some of our commodities. And some days it would be where even the Mexicans at CFE did not know what they could provide at a certain time. Sometimes they would come in at a little bit less, sometimes a little bit more. It was interesting because when I read some of the social media comments, some people went from being angry that there would be scheduled power outages to then being angry that we didn’t have the power outage that they said that we would have to prepare for, not understanding everything that was involved there.  But yes I learned a lot. We developed a great relationship not only with the people in Yucatán at CFE, but also with their head office in Mexico City.”

 

Arnold explained that while Belize is working on strengthening in-country power generation, amicable dialogue with Mexico continues to support Belize’s needs during shortages.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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