Load Shedding Sparks Strategic Power Meeting

As Belize continues to grapple with periodic power outages and growing electricity demand, the government says it is taking a more coordinated approach to securing the country’s energy future. Belize’s energy players are now being asked to plan together before the next power crisis hits. The Ministry of Public Utilities, Energy and Logistics brought BEL, the Public Utilities Commission and independent power producers around the same table for what Minister Michel Chebat calls a first-of-its-kind strategic planning meeting. The goal is to figure out how much power Belize will need in the years ahead, build stronger partnerships with local producers and, most importantly, put an end to load shedding. Here’s Minister Michel Chebat.

 

Michel Chebat, Minister of Public Utilities and Energy 

“We held a strategic meeting with BEL, with the PUC and with the Belizean IPPs, the local IPPs, which are the independent power producers. The meeting really was to focus and to explain to them what BEL’s needs are going forward in the short term, medium term, and long term and really to have a conversation with them to determine what their capacity for, and their appetite actually, is individually for growing the sector. I think it was the first time ever a meeting like that has occurred in Belize, and I think it was critical to really have that connection between the distributor of energy, which is BEL; the regulator, which is PUC; the ministry that sets policy for energy; as well as those independent power producers. I think it has now started a very important conversation and a very important relationship which I think was very useful because it really, we were able to share the concerns, we were able to share the challenges that the IPPs are facing. And of course, we were able to share with them, as a government, what our plan is for the future, the expansion plans we have, and also critically how we can fill the gap, how we can prevent, to the best of our ability, the current load-shedding that you see we’ve been experiencing. You know, we are trying to bring that to an end. We’re trying to, um, become more energy independent, and we believe that using our local producers could be the best way to go at this time.”

 

Chebat says the main concern for independent power producers is the lack of a guarantee for the sale of their energy and a reasonable return on their investment.

 

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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