Belize Considers Joining Central American Energy Grid

As the Belize Electricity Limited and the government are now aggressively pursuing further sources of energy, one of the ideas that Prime Minister Briceno had mentioned last year was for Belize to join the Central American grid.  According to CEO Mencias, this remains an option on the table, but may be more of a long-term goal.

John Mencias, CEO, Belize Electricity Limited: “It is something that we have been investigating for many years. Remember there are two parts to this. We can get additional capacity and energy from them but we can also supply to them. And that really is the focus of connecting to the Central American grid. The focus of connecting to the grid is for us to supply energy into the grid from our renewable energy sources. BEL’s strategy has been over the past four or five years, let us make sure that we are taking care of our situation in country. Once we have gotten that under control then we can focus on selling power into the Central American grid. But of course, it’s something that we can do in parallel. And as I said, the plan is to add 200 megawatts of solar and wind resources onto the grid over the next 20 years actually it can be more. Obviously there will be times when the energy that is generated from these resources will be too much for local demand that is the opportunity to export energy into a Central American grid. So there are opportunities for it especially not so much for us to be getting energy from them but also – well mainly for us to be exporting energy into the grid.”

For a closer look at the areas that will experience power outage tonight, you can check the BEL Updates Facebook page.