In their 40-minute press conference, the BEL executives also discussed the preparations that they have made to keep the lights on, even as the COVID-19 pandemic progresses. Here’s what had to say about that:
Sean Fuller - GM, Comm. and Retail Services , BEL
"We are very optimistic and we believe that while we are in this serious situation in this country, BEL's position is that we will continue to serve this country. We don't expect any power outages. Our preventative or prevention and reaction plan being headed by Mr. Armstrong allows us to respond to any trouble, respond to any issues. We have our staff being protected properly. We are training our staff how to minimize any risk or potential for attracting this virus and so we feel that we are very much prepared as a company to go through this and be successful in continuing to serve our customers with electricity going forward."
Hershel Armstrong - GM, Distribution Services, BEL
"As the head of the team we actually have a representation from all the major departments and units in BEL on the team, who typically would be the essential services of the company. So, we have given consideration to all that we would need to be able to keep and maintain the same type of service as it relates to reliability of supply to customers. That means that all our distribution teams, all our substation teams, transmission, who are the main operations guys and generation in Caye Caulker and at the GT. We have put in place plans to ensure that we have staff available to be able to maintain supply, to be able to respond in case of any outage or interruption in the system which usually would be an unplanned scenario."
But, the company is calling on Belizeans to do their part and conserve electricity. Here’s how they explained the benefits of doing that at this time:
Sean Fuller
"That line item there is the key- $15.5 million dollars. That is the reality that we must be on a monthly basis for power. What we can all do as consumers is to reduce the use of electricity. We have expectations that because a lot of the tourism and commercial sector is closing or slowing down we will see a reduction in the demand. But that reduction can also increase by all the kids home from school, some parents are home from work. So, we are really asking the community, the entire country of Belize to conserve electricity. If we cut the cost of the energy we need from independent power to produce by consuming less. It reduces the burden on the country to continue to maintain electricity for everyone. So, we are asking everyone to really look at conserving electricity as we go forward."
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