BEL Says Heat Is Driving Higher Light Bills

Many Belizeans say their light bills have shocked them this year, with some customers reporting charges that doubled or even tripled. But BEL says the main culprit is not the meter, it is the heat. According to Belize Electricity Limited, hotter weather is forcing refrigerators, fans, and air conditioners to work harder, pushing up household consumption. Today, we asked BEL Executive Chairman Lynn Young about the complaints. He says the company checked every report it received, and in almost every case, the spike came down to increased power use during the hotter months.

 

Lynn Young, Executive Chairman, Belize Electricity Limited

“Every year we get a lot of high bill complaints because of the heat. Electricity use in Belize is driven a lot by heat. So your refrigerator it’s gonna work harder, your fans are gonna work harder, your AC units are gonna work harder. And then on top of that, what happened to some customers, we found, is that there’s a threshold of one hindered for GST. So if your bill was normally ninety-five, and then because of the heat it jumped to one hundred -five, so you get an extra $ten dollars on your bill because of the higher usage. But then you jump the threshold now, and you get a twelve-point five percent GST on that whole one hundred five dollars too, which adds to it, right? There were also, that happens often in the industry, is that sometimes the meter reader goes to read a meter and cannot access the meter because of some issues or whatever, and they do an estimate billing. And sometimes that causes some variations. So if you get an estimate billing, say, in February, March, April, were very cool months. If you get an estimate based on those months, and then May comes in high, then when the real bill comes in, you get a drop, right? And it tends to hit you hard. So then look, compared to the previous months, it looks kinda high. And then there are the issue also of even the billing period. February is a short month, for example, so the billing period is short. May is thirty-one days, right? If your meter reader goes, happen a day or two late, it might be thirty-two, thirty-three days.”

 

Young says that as the temperature drops in the latter half of the year, Belizeans will likely observe a decrease in their electricity bills.

 

BEL Defends Smart Meters Amid Billing Complaints

 

For many Belizeans, the sticker shock came right after the smart meter went in. Households say their electricity bills suddenly doubled, even tripled, and now some customers are asking whether the new technology is costing them more. But Belize Electricity Limited says the smart meters are not the problem. Executive Chairman Lynn Young says BEL investigated the complaints and found the same pattern: customers are using more power, mainly because of the heat. He says other factors, including GST thresholds and billing cycles, can also make bills look higher than expected.

 

Lynn Young, Executive Chairman, Belize Electricity Limited

“Every case that we have investigated, it, it showed that there was a reason. And my bill has gone up too. I could tell you that. My bill has gone up by sixty, seventy percent, and I know it’s from the AC units and everything else. I’m just saying that all we can do is look at the data. We’ve investigated every instance that was brought to us, and in no case have we found that it was a  as a result of these new meters, right? And the meters are tested and we have the test results for them. I’m pretty sure each person who have a high bill will have their own and again Every year around this time, this is what we get. I’d say eighty, ninety percent of it is driven by the heat.”

 

BEL insists the smart meters are tested and accurate, and that the surge in bills reflects seasonal demand rather than faulty technology.

 

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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