Prime Minister brokers CFE meeting during private Mexico trip; outlines Belize’s path to energy independence

By Aaron Humes: According to Prime Minister John Briceño, Belize has been a victim of its own success in matching the growth of tourism, agriculture, and other industries with its need for energy.

He outlined the plans to course correct this following a trip accompanying Special Envoy Rossana Briceno for medical treatment which diverted into a mini-state visit with President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

In the immediate and short term, he told reporters, the Mexican president has agreed to help us by setting up a meeting in Cancun with the head of the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE): “…he will be in Cancun on Saturday and the head of the CFE will be in Cancun because every two weeks he comes to the president to take a first look at the work with the Tren Maya and so he will be here on Friday and Saturday, five o ‘clock he will be arriving in Cancun and having a meeting with all the key technical people. He will be arranging a meeting with me and I have already invited BEL [Belize Electricity Limited] to join me to meet with the people from CFE to see what we can do to be able to cut out the rollout of the blackouts.”

The P.M. then turned to the long game for national energy plans. BEL is expected to introduce separate upgraded gas turbines for the mainland and San Pedro Town by the end of the month. Next, he outlined the plans for the 60-megawatt solar plant funded to the tune of US$72 million by the Saudi Arabian government. It will be split into three separate 20-megawatt plants commissioned by BEL: “There’s a whole process we have to do. It’s a huge bureaucracy that the Saudis have. And so, we have been working with them and one of the Saudi companies that will be able to come in to build the first 20-megawatt (plant). [BEL CEO John] Mencias, explained to us, he said, listen, the grid as it is can’t hold a 60-megawatt plant all in one spot. So we need to break it up [into] three, three 20-megawatt plants. So the first one is going to be built by Bomba. And from what the reports I got, we expect that that’s supposed to be commissioned by July, August of next year.”

With funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and World Bank, another $100 million will be put into what is known as a battery bank – which the Prime Minister explained is a storage facility where BEL can store energy obtained in off-peak time from CFE and feed it into the national grid and keep prices stable.

A new Request for Proposals (RFP) process to obtain new sources of energy has also been established. It has been accepted by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), by BEL, and also by the MCC which is putting in $125 million as part of its grant for energy development in Belize.

With all of the above, the P.M. deflected criticism of BEL’s efforts, stating that energy production is not part of its mandate, that the Government and PUC failed in the previous administration, and that now they are trying to work better together.

And if you’re wondering whether the PM is affected, he reassured the public that he also experiences the blackouts, since, like most, he doesn’t have a generator.

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