The wholesale importation of golf carts in San Pedro over the past couple years has entered new and creative means recently. Golf cart rentals are now resort to disassembling the vehicles into parts and then transporting them onto the island. Today, Belize Rural South Area Representative, Andre Perez told News Five that because of the traffic congestion, permits are not being granted for any more golf carts to be imported in San Pedro. It is a problem that Perez says his office will be collaborating closely with the town council to enforce traffic rules and regulations, and where necessary, to get the Ministry of Transport involved.
Andre Perez
Andre Perez, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
“I have reached out to the Minister of Transport and the CEO that we may need some kind of additional support, maybe at the port that they go there and inspect these things because they need to have permits. They need to have a permit. While you may say you have a dealership license, that does not give you. Open packet for you to bring in a hundred golf carts because you have a dealership license, right? So we have to have some kind of, enforcement there going. And we have reached out and they took for, support there as well. We have to cap it and say no more, because at this point in time, you can go there and rent a golf cart and you’ll pay a rock bottom price for it because the supply is plentiful. Now I’m not saying that we want to increase prices for our tourists, but finding the balance is that enough is enough, and the tourists will understand. When I have the traffic problem and the congestion, we realize that we’ve reached our point. That we have to say, no more. Secondly, enforcing the quality of the golf cart that’s being rented. Beca we have to cap it and say no more, because at this point in time, you can go there and rent a golf cart and you’ll pay a rock bottom price for it. Because the supply is plentiful. Now I’m not saying that we want to increase prices for our tourists, but finding the balance is that enough is enough, and the tourists will understand.When I have the traffic problem and the congestion, we realize that we’ve reached our point. That we have to say, no more. Secondly, enforcing the quality of the golf cart that’s being rented. Because often times you see, some of those tourists are stuck, middle of the street, right there, they broke down.use often times you see, some of those tourists are stuck, middle of the street, right there, they broke down.”
An environmental study is currently being conducted on the northern end of Ambergris Caye to determine the placement of sewer ponds to facilitate the growing population on that side of the island. Today, Belize Rural South Area Representative, Andre Perez says that while the population was growing over the past decade, nothing was being done to expand the sewer system, until now.
Andre Perez, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
“We came in to look at the studies and see what can be done on the northern part of Ambergris Caye. And that again, I want to highlight is the water, the sewer system was installed many years ago, and that is where it’s at, no expansion, no growth on it, no plans ahead. And that is another utility that we’re dealing with, apart from electricity and the sewer and water as well, is that there was no plans for the last 15 years, no kind of plans, no expansion, nothing for infrastructure. So now that this infrastructure is virtually the same as it was 20 years ago. Nothing has been done. So that’s another issue we’re dealing with. I think, in fact, I know, only the town core is hooked up to the sewer system. Environmentally speaking, right now, it’s a concern as well. So we need to work on that as well. That’s another issue that we’re working and looking at it. As you say, it’s in the pipeline, but we are seeing that this should have been done many years ago. But it can’t happen overnight. It costs millions of dollars, the funding as well as money, and that is where our government is working, is seeking those funds that are available.”
Tonight, there are portions of the country that are presently without electricity. In fact, this has been the case since ten a.m. when electricity was cut off in certain areas of Orange Walk District. The scheduled power interruptions will continue until eleven p.m. That’s because Belize is facing an energy crisis and B.E.L., its sole electricity provider, is scrambling to meet demand levels that have soared as high as one hundred and twenty-five megawatts. As it stands, the maximum in-country generation capacity is ninety-five megawatts and its supply from CFE in Mexico remains uncertain. The effect of the hours-long power interruption was most felt in San Pedro on Wednesday, and we will have full coverage of that untimely experience elsewhere in our newscast. Earlier today, the Chief Executive Officer of Belize Electricity Limited and other senior managers of the utility company held a press conference to inform the nation of the latest challenges that B.E.L. is faced with. C.E.O. John Mencias began by discussing the country’s present consumption.
John Mencias
John Mencias, C.E.O., Belize Electricity Ltd.
“The local peak, well the peak for Belize goes up usually about a hundred and fifteen megawatts, but it can go as high as it did earlier this year to a hundred and twenty-seven megawatts. There are times during the day, especially during the night when it falls to a hundred and fifteen megawatts which means that in-country supply is able to meet that peak. However, we had to take our Mile 8 gas turbine out of service because we are upgrading it and so we lost nineteen megawatts and that puts the local in-country generation capacity below a hundred megawatts which means, therefore, that once we’re in that situation to be able to meet demand most of the time, we have to rely on the fifty-five megawatts that we get from CFE. Whenever we can’t get power from CFE and we’re in that situation, then we have to resort to load shedding. So we were in a situation like that on Monday whereby CFE said we have to meet demand over here in Mexico and we are unable to supply you with the fifty-five megawatts that you need. In fact, you need to go down to zero at this time, and when they do that, we are unable to match demand with supply.”
According to Mencias, what has been taking place is load shedding, a controlled process of temporarily reducing electricity consumption across different areas to ensure the stability and continuous operation of the national electricity grid. During the presser, the Chief Executive Officer also informed that CFE, Belize’s energy supplier in Mexico, was only able to provide twenty megawatts to the grid until three o’clock this afternoon.
John Mencias, C.E.O., Belize Electricity Ltd.
“So we have to load shed and that is what happened on Monday. And that is actually what is happening right now as we speak, that CFE has agreed today to supply us about twenty megawatts up to 3:00 this evening. It’s three o’clock already? But as of three o’clock they are going to cut it down to zero which means that we have to take off even more feeders throughout the country. So those are the reasons for the recent power interruptions. There’s a shortage of generation capacity in the country. Now, I want to make it abundantly clear to everyone that CFE is not acting outside of the contractual arrangements with BEL. What we purchase from CFE is called opportunity cost energy. It use to be called economic energy which means that it is interruptible at any moment’s notice. However, CFE has worked with us, they have tried to give us two hours notice, sometimes it is less. The relationship with CFE goes way back. It goes way back to the 1980’s. They have been a reliable provider of electricity for Belize. They have enabled us to keep our costs down, but importantly, also, they have provided us with great support and to put that in context, our systems are interconnected. We are very small compared to them. Any jolt in our system, they are able to handle it for us and that is the importance of being connected to a big brother like CFE. However, we have been aware for some time that they have also been having generation shortage problems of their own and also what we call transmission congestion problems. And that is why we have been emphasizing that we need to build in-country generation capacity to a level to be able to meet our peak demand within our own country. That does not mean that we’re saying we don’t want to continue our relationship with CFE. We want to continue that relationship with CFE. They provide us, as I said, with grid support and when the price of energy from CFE is low, we want to purchase it. it’s to our advantage. However, our focus has been since 2019, on energy security. Well from before. But we have made a point, we are driving the point that we have to stop relying on CFE to meet peak demand in country.”
On Wednesday, residents of San Pedro underwent a fourteen-hour power outage. This came amidst tourism high season, forcing hotels that were able to use generators to accommodate guests, while smaller hotels made do without. In a press conference today, B.E.L. C.E.O. John Mencias said the most recent outage was caused by faulty equipment. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with the story.
Britney Gordon, Reporting
Amidst the tourism high season, Belize’s premier tourist destination underwent a grueling thirteen-hour power outage. What began at ten twenty a.m. on Wednesday, lasted until the early hours of Thursday morning in some areas. This power outage was not the first residents of the island experienced recently, as just a few weeks ago, power supply to the island was cut. This was caused by a submarine cable, which supplies energy to the area, surpassing its max capacity. To protect the cable, the feed from it was temporarily dropped by Belize Electricity Limited. At a press briefing held by the energy providers, BEL CEO, John Mencias expanded on the events that caused the breach to occur.
John Mencias
John Mencias, C.E.O., Belize Electricity Ltd
“So about three or four weeks ago. We had power interruptions. I think it occurred on Saturday. A power interruption in San Pedro. It affected feeder to San Pedro, which is the portion of the feed the system that feeds to the north where most of the resorts are. That lasted for probably an hour to two the most. And the reason for that poor interruption is that the cable, the capacity of the single submarine cable that feeds the island was breached, meaning that demand on the island surpassed the capacity of the cable. The cable is rated for somewhere in the region of seventeen megawatts just above, and the demand in San Pedro went to seventeen point six megawatts. And we move quickly. To protect the cable. And that is why we dropped a feeder to out there. But afterwards, what we did, Is that we got in contact with various resort owners. We asked them if they could go on their standby generators when they did. So that reduced the demand for electricity in San Pedro and we were able to reduce supply below the capacity limit of the cable.”
Mencia said that the high demand in San Pedro continued for about two weeks, causing larger hotel owners to rely on personal generators. Mencias said that eventually the levels normalized, and the company was able to meet the demand once again. Yesterday, however, the power supply was cut off once again. This time, because of malfunctioning equipment.
John Mencias
“However, yesterday early in the morning, we started to encounter, voltage fluctuations at or Mascal substation, which supplies San Pedro. And when we further investigated on site we found that there was leakage and there was smoking of one of the major components of the transformer. And we had to move quickly to protect the transformer. And we had to drop the entire circuit that feeds San Pedro. That is from ten twenty. We realized very quickly that we could not do anything about fixing the transformer in the meantime and we moved quickly to deploy a mobile transformer. That we have in place to the Mascal substation.”
After several hours, BEL employees were finally able to replace the faulty transformer and restore power to the island.
John Mencias
“We started to move right away. It took us about two and a half to three hours to dismantle that mobile substation. I say transformer. It’s actually a full substation. It was by mile eight the George Price Highway. It took us another five hours to transport that because it is huge and wide. It could not go through the normal route to Mascal. It had to go all the way up to Carmelita and then down along the old Northern Highway. And even two of the bushings on that mobile substation broke. Had it not been for that, we would have been able to get back San Pedro online by about nine thirty last night. Remember, from ten twenty in the morning, we up to then, we actually got back online until forty-eight minutes after midnight, which is this morning.”
Mencias said that the company is going to repair the transformer that caused the power outage as the mobile substation used to restore power is just a temporary solution and is at max capacity.
John Mencias
“What we’re doing now, we have brought in some help from a contractor based in Guatemala who specializes in fixing those components. I think he should be here today. One of their representatives is here today. And we hope to get the transformer back in service within the next three to four weeks. But in the meantime, the mobile substation is capable of supplying the capacity out there. I will see the demand out there. I will say, though, that mobile substation is at its capacity limit, too, so we will have to continue to manage the man in San Pedro. So that is the San Pedro situation. We also had a transmission line failure. Go to that before the day before that.”
Among the issues with the equipment, BEL’s largest power supplier CFE has been unable to provide power to Belize, resulting in several power outages across the country. Minister of Tourism and Diaspora relations, Anthony Mahler said that he is hopeful the issue can be rectified soon.
Anthony Mahler
Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism & Diaspora Relations
“Hotels. The bigger ones do, yes. It is problematic for us, but. We had a discussion in cabinet yesterday about it, and BEL is working feverishly to try to rectify the situation. It’s not the best situation. We’re still in high season right now, per se. We believe that we’ll get the solutions implemented pretty soon.”
Reporter
“But we see these constant blackouts happening, and they may continue because of Mexico’s load shedding. Is there anything being done to ensure that tourists don’t have to endure this?”
Anthony Mahler
“We’re talking to Mexico as well. And so hopefully this can be rectified sooner rather than later.”
The Belize Electricity Limited is figuring out how it will navigate through the dilemma of maintaining the country’s power supply. Out in San Pedro where the tourism season is still at its peak, there are concerns of potential health issues should people consume perishables that have gone bad. This evening, Area Representative Andre Perez says that he looks to B.E.L. to solve the issue, but he wants other questions answered as well.
Via phone: Andre Perez, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
“Many things come into play, though. We’re talking about all kinds of things, even health issues come into play, especially with the heat right now. You have a lot of food poisoning. You’re hearing people dumping things out of their fridge. It’s very serious and it’s cause for concern, and I am just afraid that this can be something looming up ahead and the way how the B.E.L company is letting us know that they are going to be load-shedding out over the country and says that there is a problem and we need to address it. We’re extremely concerned as it relates to tourism as well – extremely important. Of course, this is still the busy season. This is not the slow season as yet because we are very busy and extremely concerned. According to what we have been briefed, B.E.L. is pushing aggressively to install a massive generator here on Ambergris Caye. I think it’s about a 20-megawatt-sized generator, and they’re saying that they’re hoping that they can have it up and running by the end of May, and we are hopeful. Two things here: one is that this is fossil fuel type of generator, which is not really helping at all in terms of what we are as a community that’s trying to move away from fossil fuels, right, in terms of electricity. But secondly, given the urgency of it, it needs to be installed because I’m telling you, it would be grief if we get affected here furthermore, and It can threaten not only the tourism sector, but indeed our economy. While you might blame Mexico for not providing, we have to look as well at the infrastructure. What has B.E.L done in the past 15 years? What caused these problems because the three outages caused is not by C.F.E, which is the Mexican Commission that provides electricity. It is showing that it is part of the infrastructure. So this is a concern firstly, as I see it, we have a concern here as it relates to the infrastructure that has not been addressed. And I think it’s manifesting itself now that San Pedro is actually consuming so much energy at this point in time.”
Marion Ali
Are people buying their own generators?
Andre Perez
“Lots of people have been buying up the generators right now, but that’s an additional expense that we don’t need, but we have to deal with it. When you drive around town here – yesterday when it was in the dark, a lot of people had these generators running, but this is a cost that nobody’s budgeting for, so it’s serious and healthwise.”
Over the past several weeks, residents across the country have been experiencing power outages that span from a few minutes to several hours. On Wednesday, residents of San Pedro underwent an exceptionally long outage which clocked in at around fourteen hours. These outages are the result of several factors, namely B.E.L.’s largest energy provider, CFE is no longer able to provide Belize with fifty-five megawatts of power as Mexico is facing its own energy crisis. C.E.O. John Mencias explained what B.E.L. plans to do to rectify the situation immediately.
John Mencia
John Mencia, C.E.O., Belize Electricity Ltd.
“But immediately, what do we have in place? Immediately. What we have in place is that we’re upgrading or gas turbine. As I said at mile eight. And that is expected to come back online by early next week. It was originally at nineteen megawatts. It’s being upgraded to thirty megawatts. So next week, thirty megawatts of additional capacity is coming online. Once that comes online, we will be able to bridge the generation shortage that we’re experiencing right now. And then, by the end of May, we’ll be adding another twenty megawatts of capacity gas turbine in San Pedro. So that will, that means that by the end of me, we’re compared to where we are now, we’re putting back or we’re installing on the grid 50 megawatts of additional capacity that will put us in a position to be able to meet peak demand. Well, beyond. The next twelve months and more than likely up to about eighteen months. And what that does, it gives us a window, but only a window to start to put in place and we must move immediately to put in place the capacity. The additional capacity that I just spoke to you about the additional solar, the battery storage solutions. And our wind, wind power plant as well. Of the past few weeks, Belize has undergone several disruptions in power. So that is what it does. Now, once we put the additional 20 megawatts of gas turbine capacity on San Pedro, it means that if we ever lose that cable, or we have a problem with the transformers we did last night, we will be able to resort to generation from the gas turbine that will be in San Pedro. Because the demand on San Pedro, we are seeing is increasing. Is probably around eighteen megawatts. The capacity of that gas turbine is about twenty megawatts that we be installing in San Pedro.”
B.E.L. has commenced routine load shedding, which limits power in various areas of the country. Today, several parts of Belize City will experience the scheduled outages as the company attempts to manage the capacity. B.E.L. General Manager Jose Moreno explained what we can expect of this scheduled outage.
Jose Moreno, General Manager, Belize Electricity Ltd.
“As I think we have explained earlier, we have prepared a program or a schedule for load shedding based on a forecast, on a demand forecast that we have prepared for the day. That demand forecast establishes more or less how much demand we’re going to do by hour. Based on the generation availability at that hour, and given the restrictions imposed to us by the lack of supply from, the lack of adequate supply from CFE, and our own generation sources, then we established, you know, a plan, Taking into consideration areas that we can, where can we can do early, where it is better to do later at night and also we take into consideration the size of those areas, the size of those heaters. Belize City, I know it’s a business district, so we’re trying to, if we need to, because we need to right now, especially right now at three o’clock, We are going to be short of about thirty megawatts. That is, that calls for the outage of an entire Belize city. We’re not going to do that. So, if we touch areas in Belize City, we’ll do it at an earlier time than what we would do on a rural area. So, I think we have prepared a proposed schedule that I think Customer Care and PR have already shared with, with our customers and employees. And if the load materializes, if those restrictions continue, then those load sharing schedules are affected. So it’s something that is fluid, right? Let’s say to, in the next hour or so, we lose one of our generation sources. It will need to be adjusted. But, overall, we will follow a plan that takes into consideration the sensitivities of the areas where we plan to do. There are some areas that we did not expect to launch in Belize City at Six. That’s where the hospital is where the hospitals are. Areas of government offices in Belmopan. Health centers, police stations, and so on. So we take into consideration those areas. Areas that we might have of concern with respect to crime. So we are very conscious and we put all of those factors into the plan.”
The Joint Unions Negotiation Team met with representatives of the Government of Belize today after seven months. The union’s negotiating team is comprised of members from the Belize National Teachers Union, the Public Service Union and the Association of Public Service Senior Managers. The joint unions wrote Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde a few weeks ahead of today’s meeting proposing eight items for discussion. Among the proposals was a request to have the concluded Collective Agreement between the Government of Belize and the joint unions signed, a call for tax reform, and the establishment of a UN Anti-Corruption Commission. We caught up with the Deputy Prime Minister after the meeting in Belize City who spoke briefly about some of the outcomes from today’s discussions.
Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister
“I can tell you that the big deliverable has been the matter of the CBA that has been sixteen years outstanding. And the particular sticking point for all those years was proposal twenty-two. The big issue being that teacher, particularly at the secondary school level that are not government schools, government pays seventy percent of their salaries and the denominational management pay thirty percent. Upon retirement the government pays seventy percent of the pension, and the management pays thirty percent. But for many years a lot of those teachers who spent many years of their lives teaching were unable to collect their full pension because the managements have had difficulty with that. So, proposal twenty-two from the unions from way back as 2008 was about saying why don’t you take on a hundred percent of those salaries. At the high school level, the tertiary level, not just for teachers, but also for auxiliary staff. That has been a sticking point for all those years. in December the government finally agreed that we would cover that, that we would respond favorably to proposal twenty-two.”
We also heard from Nadia Caliz, the President of the Belize National Teachers Union. Caliz told reporters that both groups have agreed on June fifth to sign off on proposal twenty-two and the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Here is what she told us.
Nadia Caliz, National President, B.N.T.U.
“What we did is that we looked at a number of proposals that we sent to government approximately two weeks ago. We gave them time to go through it so today’s meeting was for us to discuss those things. WE did look at the increment suspension. We looked at tax reform, pension reform and the fact that we had additional suggestions for government, they will be going back to their teams to address those things and we will be going to our team to share with them some of the things we agreed to. To very important things happened on June fifth we will be signing off on proposal twenty-two and closing off the CBA and we got the government to agree to paying fifty percent of what is due to people who have retired, at least in the past thirty days because there are so many people out there hammering for what is rightfully there’s. And through today’s negotiations government has committed to giving those retired persons fifty percent of what is rightfully there’s, So for us that is a plus.”
