Remote Belizean Villages in Toledo District Await Electricity Until Late Next Year

Villagers in Jalacte and San Vicente, in the Toledo District, will have to wait until late next year to get electricity according to Belize Electricity Limited (BEL). Last weekend these communities signed a consent agreement with the Government of Belize, greenlighting a rural electrification project. Emmanuel Pech, Senior Corporate Communications Officer at BEL, explained that, as the implementing agency, BEL needs to follow a process. This process begins with the procurement of materials before moving into actual construction. Pech added that the communities receiving mini-grids under the project are remote and require innovative means to supply them with power.

Emmanuel Pech, Senior Corporate Communications Officer: “What’s happening right now as we speak is that after the consent agreement we have now kick started the procurement stage of getting the necessary materials in Belize for then the construction phase of this project to begin. The project is slated for completion in the latter part of 2025 and just to let you know even though we have just now received the consent agreement from these communities the work hasn’t stopped. Ever since the signing first began the work behind the scenes although you might not see physical construction going up the work has been ongoing since the grand signing to get everything in order for the project to be executed and implemented. And once commission, once the mini grid schemes have been commissioned BEL will be operating and maintaining these minigrid schemes. What a mini grid is is it’s own system that’s why it’s called a mini grid it’s own system and it is supplied using a hybrid solar, diesel and battery technologies to supply these communities. Solar in the first instance and then battery systems and diesel as backup. So they currently won’t be interconnected with the grid so they’ll have their own system sort of in isolation. I wish you could take a trip to these communities, these communities are very remote and so looking at the conditions of these communities the implementation or the use of this technology was the most effective way to provide reliable access to energy for these communities.”

In 2022, BEL signed a grant agreement with the European Union (EU) for a project to provide electricity to five rural communities. The project is valued at five million euros with four and a half million euros coming from the EU and BEL making up the difference. Two other villages, San Vicente, and San Benito Poite, signed consent agreements greenlighting the implementation of mini-grids in their communities back in January.