Will Your BEL Bills Keep Changing Monthly?

Belizeans will see a new line item on their electricity bills this month, and while BEL says it is designed to keep the company financially healthy and protect consumers from sudden price shocks, the bigger question is this: how much more will households be asked to absorb in an already expensive economy? Starting with the August 2026 bill, the Public Utilities Commission has approved a Cost of Power Adjustment, or COPA, of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour under a new regulatory sandbox framework. BEL says the actual cost of power over the past six months was 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour higher than the reference cost approved by the regulator, but the monthly increase has been capped at 1.5 cents to avoid a sharper hit to customers. The company says the mechanism gives regulators a month-by-month way to respond to real market conditions, meaning the adjustment could go up, go down, disappear, or even result in a rebate, depending on the actual cost of power and PUC approval. But for consumers, the question is not only how the formula works, but whether this new system will bring more transparency or simply normalize monthly changes to their light bills. BEL says social rate customers will be exempt and that the COPA charge will not attract GST, but for everyone else, the adjustment begins now. So tonight, we ask: is this a fair and flexible way to protect Belize’s energy supply, or is it the start of another unpredictable cost being passed on to ordinary consumers?

 

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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