BEL Asks PUC to Double Monthly COPA Charge on Your Bill
Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) wants permission to double the maximum extra charge it can add to customers’ bills each month to cover the rising cost of power.
In a letter to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) dated 23 October, BEL Executive Chairman Lynn Young asked the regulator to raise the cap on the Cost of Power Adjustment (COPA) from 5% to 10%. That would lift the maximum monthly adjustment from about 1.5 cents to about 3 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Based on calculations, for a household using 200 kilowatt-hours a month, the COPA line on the bill could rise from about $3 to about $6. Customers on the social rate are exempt from the charge. The social rate is the lowest tariff, for homes that use 60 kilowatt-hours or less a month, and it costs 22 cents per kilowatt-hour.
What COPA is
The PUC introduced COPA in July as a one-year trial, or “regulatory sandbox.” It kept base electricity rates unchanged but allowed BEL to adjust bills up or down each month, within a cap, as the cost of buying and producing power changes. The charge appears as a separate line on bills, and government has exempted it from General Sales Tax.
Why BEL wants more
BEL says it has hit the cap every month. Its four filings show the adjustment it needed was 4.98 cents per kilowatt-hour for August, 6.27 cents for September, 8.02 cents for October and 10.67 cents for November. The cap allowed only 1.51 cents each time.
BEL estimates that gap left about $16.86 million unrecovered over four months.
The company blames three pressures. Electricity from Mexico’s CFE got more expensive, with the average hourly price rising from 17.1 cents per kilowatt-hour in January to 62.4 cents in September, before easing to 33.1 cents in October. Hydroelectric output reached about 80.97 gigawatt-hours, short of the 100 gigawatt-hour mark that cuts the hydro price from 26 cents to about 10 cents. And BEL still pays for rented temporary generation, under contracts that run through April 2027, to cover 24 CFE supply cuts recorded in August and September.
What the PUC said in July
The PUC rejected an earlier BEL request to roll unrecovered amounts into the monthly charge, warning it could wipe out rebates customers should get when power costs fall.
The regulator said that if BEL needed that, “the mechanism might not be fit-for-purpose,” and a fixed price increase “might be more transparent for customers.”
It also faulted BEL’s past choices. Between 2023 and 2025, BEL’s actual cost of power ran between 29.15 and 31.17 cents per kilowatt-hour, while approved rates assumed 24.42 to 27.23 cents. The PUC noted BEL had chosen to forgo rate increases.
The PUC also criticised BEL for failing to roll out a demand charge despite investing more than $40 million in smart meters.
The sandbox rules allow the PUC to suspend or change COPA if the 5% cap is hit repeatedly in a way that shows it is not working.
The request now sits with the PUC. Its decision will settle whether customers pay the estimated $16.86 million shortfall now or face it at next year’s rate review.