We spoke to the prime minister at the House Meeting today, but only an hour after it started, there was a blackout covering most of the country.
It seemed to almost foreshadow the rolling blackouts that are projected for the second quarter next year- which pose a real polticial problem for the PUP.
In a recent letter to the PUC, BEL's CEO, John Mencias, confirmed an anticipated material shortfall in generation services. As such, they are asking that the PUC request that the government declare that an emergency situation has risen outside of the control of Belize.
According to BEL's projections, peak electricity demand in the next 12 months will exceed available generation. They attribute the problem to a failure to secure new generation capacity, along with ongoing droughts and heatwaves that have reduced the supply from Mexico's CFE.
The PM clarified that today's blackout was unrelated to that, and explained what the government is trying to do ahead of those projections.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We have a blackout because I've been told, I've not spoken to the CEO but Minister Chebat as the Minister of Energy rightfully should be the one that is informed, that there has been some issue at Mollejon and that is why most of the country was under a blackout with the exception of Orange Walk and Corozal, why those two? I don't know. So don't mix it up. Those things happen."
Reporter:
"So that's why I was going to ask the question."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"So on the second one, on declaring the energy, I have not spoken directly to the CEO. But we've had many discussions on this and he has pointed out in the act that we can declare an emergency so we can quickly get investors to sign up for energy and he believes that if he does that, by the end of next year, he could be able to have a 60 or 80 megawatts, I don't know the details."
"Also, I need to remind you, we've had a discussion with a group of Belizeans who have partnered with an outside group that has access to bring in a ship for 80 megawatts. Now that ship was to come into Belize and be able to provide energy, especially in times when we'll need it, probably in April. We need to be able to sign a contract with them. To do that you have to declare an emergency. there may be, may not be, a shortage in April/May, we're doing everything possible to put everything in place to avoid that."
"So when I was at the inauguration of the new president, Sheinbaum in Mexico, I met with the new Minister of Energy, it was her first day in the office, along with officials from the CFE. So we're at the point now we proposed the ship because the ship is 80 megawatts and we cannot use 80 megawatts. The idea is that we use what we need and we sell the rest of Mexico."
"So now the negotiations are starting. They're finally putting their team together, we have our team from finance, Ministry of Energy, BEL, and PUC to meet with the officials in Mexico, so it's a number of reasons, it's again, forward planning. We don't want to wait until the house is burning down to try and do anything."
Email
Print