Why the lights go out: Belize’s forty percent problem

By Breaking Belize News Staff (HP): Every Belizean who has sat through a sudden power cut this year now has the official explanation. About forty percent of the country’s electricity is purchased from Mexico’s state-owned power company, CFE, and whenever demand spikes in the neighbouring state of Quintana Roo, CFE reduces the supply flowing south, forcing Belize Electricity Limited to carry out load shedding, deliberately cutting power to different areas to keep the national grid from destabilising.

Those supply reductions have resulted in outages across parts of Belize, laying bare the risk of relying so heavily on another country to keep the lights on.

Minister of Public Utilities, Logistics and Energy Michel Chebat says the Government recognizes the need for Belize to become more energy independent, while cautioning that the goal demands major investment and cannot be achieved overnight.

“We are in continuous discussion with CFE. The situation is that they themselves have shortages in Mexico and so when they experience it then here in Belize we have to load shed, right?” the Minister explained. “And so that is where we are, but for us as a country it is important for us to find local means of energy production.”

Chebat revealed that the push for a solution has now pulled every major player to one table. “Actually Wednesday, we had a meeting with the government, the IPPs, the PUC and BEL, so that jointly we can find a solution. There is a certain gap that we’re trying to fill and so we felt that it is important to bring in our local producers so that we can have energy being created here at home and to try and lessen that dependence we have on CFE.”

The dependence problem is being attacked on several fronts, though none delivers immediate relief. Belize’s first utility-scale solar plant, a 15 megawatt facility with battery storage at Buena Vista Village in Corozal, is targeted for completion by the end of this year. A separate competitive process launched with the International Finance Corporation aims to add up to 80 megawatts of solar capacity, while the long-delayed Saudi-funded solar project is being restructured into a hybrid of solar and battery storage. The Government has also taken ownership of the Hydro Belize dams on the Macal River, which supply roughly a third of BEL’s power.

The objective, as the Government frames it, is straightforward: produce more of the electricity Belize consumes, so that the next time Mexico faces its own supply pressures, Belizean homes and businesses do not pay the price in darkness.

Until those megawatts materialise, however, the forty percent problem remains, and with it, the load shedding that has become an unwelcome feature of Belizean life.

How have the power cuts affected you, Belize? Comment below.

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