Yesterday, a Belize Electricity Limited official told us that their West Lake Gas Turbine would be up by sometime this week, and they have since indicated to another media that it will be back online by the end of the week. This means that we will continue experiencing power rationing if Mexico’s CFE curtails its power supply to BEL.
Just yesterday, multiple areas of the country experienced power outages due to CFE’s curtailment of power. Impacted areas included Belize City’s north side, areas of Ladyville, Belmopan, Dangriga, Independence and Punta Gorda. The blackout was projected to last between 2 to 3 hours from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Another outage impacted Orange Walk, Dangriga, Independence and Punta Gorda from 9:30 p.m. to midnight. BEL officials have said they were able to manage supply so that the blackouts did not last the full three hours. This included asking commercial and industrial customers to go on their generators.
For today, BEL reported in the morning that CFE indicated its supply would go to zero. This means load shedding will occur today. The schedule has been posted on the company’s BEL Power Updates Facebook page. However, people are complaining that the schedule is not accurate. The first blackout to impact areas in the north, Belize City and Belize District, was set to begin at 5:30 p.m. and end at 8:30 p.m. Another will impact Corozal, Belmopan, San Ignacio and Dangriga from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Local power consumption peaks at between 115 and 125 megawatts on any given day. In the country, generation only reaches 95 megawatts. It is constituted by power sourced from the Fortis Belize-operated dams out west. Fortis last week reported it is generating 43 megawatts of electricity equivalent to 40% of local demand. Other local sources include BAPCOL in the Blair Atoll, BELCOGEN in Orange Walk, Santander out West and Hydro Maya in the South, and a small solar power plant owned by JICA. Meanwhile, Mexico’s CFE supplies Belize with up to 55 megawatts of energy.
Once the upgraded Westlake gas turbine is back on stream, it is expected to provide an additional 11 megawatts of in-country capacity on the grid.
BEL has also reported that it is installing a 21-megawatt gas turbine in San Pedro, which should be in place by the end of May.
