What’s the Status of Belize’s Solar Energy Project?

In late May, we asked Minister of Public Utilities Michel Chebat about the status of a seventy-seven million US dollar loan from the Saudi Fund for Development to finance a sixty-megawatt solar energy project in Belize. The funding was secured in August 2023, when the government signed the loan agreement. Nearly three years later, however, the project has yet to get underway. According to Minister Chebat, the original plan is being restructured to incorporate battery storage, creating a hybrid system aimed at improving energy reliability.

 

Michel Chebat, Minister of Public Utilities

“There is some discussion about a little bit of reconstructing it, because we are looking at eighty solar, that was intended for sixty solar. I think we are now looking at battery, forty and twenty. So we are combining it with solar and battery as opposed to just solar. But, we expect that to come on stream as well.”

 

Chebat maintained that the investment remains a key step toward strengthening Belize’s long-term energy security and renewable capacity.

 

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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