BEL’s Chief Executive Officer John Mencias explains load shedding schedule for customers 

By Zoila Palma Gonzalez: Today, Belize Electricity Limited (BEL)s Chief Executive Officer John Mencias explained load shedding schedule to customers.

“Today, peak demand is expected to reach just over 125 MW in the mid-afternoon and around 110 MW to 115 MW between 7:00 pm and midnight.

We have 95 MW of available in-country capacity and Mexico (CFE) has indicated that we can get 55 MW of capacity from them up to 7:00 pm.

This means we should have 150 MW of capacity right up to 7:00 pm this evening. This will be sufficient to meet in-country demand right through to 7:00 pm, even if we lose one or two of our in-country generating units. Remember though, this depends on supply from Mexico being available up to 7:00 pm,” Mencias explains.

Mencias noted that after 7:00 pm, supply from Mexico is forecast to reduce to zero, right through to midnight. 

“This means that the maximum generation capacity that will be available to supply the grid will be 95 MW, from 7:00 pm right through to midnight.

But, peak demand between 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm is forecast to be around 115 MW, dropping to around 110 MW between 9:30 pm and midnight.

As a result, we are forecasting a generation shortage of around 20 MW between 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm and around 15 MW from 9:30 pm to midnight,” Mencias added.

In addition, BELs CEO explained that 20 MW is equivalent is to the demand on about 5 to 8 feeders (or all of Belize City);  and 15 MW is equivalent to the demand on around 4 to 6 feeders (or all of San Pedro). Demand on our feeders can range in amount from 1.5 MW  to 6 MW.

Therefore, BEL will prepare a load shedding schedule to take out around 5 to 8 feeders in different areas of the country from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm and then another 4 to 6 feeders from 9:30 pm to midnight. 

Mencias also assured that the company will contact all major resorts and manufacturers who we know have standby generators on site to ask them to go on their standbys from around 6:30 pm. Most are usually able to do so; some will be unsure if they will be able to assist; a few will be unable to. 

“We can only be sure when 7:00 pm comes and we see what the actual demand is.

So … let’s say at 7:00 pm, CFE asks us to reduce our take to zero and we see that demand is exactly as we predicted. Then, we immediately start taking the feeders offline as we had announced.

If demand is less than we predicted, then it is possible that only say 5 instead of 7 feeders are taken offline. This could be because some of the resorts and manufacturers switched to their standbys as promised, reducing the demand on the grid. 

It could also be that CFE says to us that they will allow us to take up to 5 MW. This would allow us to keep two smaller feeders or one large feeder online.

BUT … it could also be that CFE calls us at 5:05 pm to say that we need to reduce our take to zero by 5:30 pm, as they did yesterday. Then, we must quickly change the schedule as we did yesterday. Sometimes, we get this out to Customers after the load shedding starts,” Mencias further explained.

“It could also be that, at 9:00 pm, we lose one of the local generating units. In such a case, we may need to take another feeder offline that was not previously on the schedule if we are unable to get CFE to give us an additional 3 MW or so. 

But, it could also be that the Westlake Gas Turbine is able to come online by 10:00 pm tonight, and we can bring back some or all feeders even before midnight! We are hoping we can make it happen. For today, though, we will not assume that this will be so,” he added.

Mencias said that BEL is grateful to ALL Customers for your patience and your support.

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