Minister Chebat speaks on the country’s energy crisis

Public Utilities Minister, Michel Chebat, rose in the house meeting this morning highlighting the record high temperatures recently experienced in the country.  He spoke on the effects of climate change and the increase in energy demand across the country, noting that the demand in electricity is projected to grow to an unprecedented 135 megawatts come next month.  Chebat noted that the prolonged heatwave and drought have even brought river levels at an all-time low. With all that said, the minister noted that the energy policy approved last year would address these current issues by raise renewable energy penetration from 53 to 75 percent by 2030; and by adding more than 160 megawatts of energy to the grid.  On a very interesting note, Minister Chebat announced that the government will now allow for private energy generation.

Michel Chebat, Minister of Public Utilities: “We have approved new regulations to open the market to individual customers so that they now have the opportunity to produce their own electricity and sell the excess into the national grid. Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago, I travelled with the Honourable Prime Minister to Cancun, where we met with the Mexican President to discuss the supply of electricity from CFE to Belize. Mexico is committed to assisting us and we have the assurance that after the 2nd of June 2024, the supply from CFE will stabilize. And in addition, we have a commitment to extend the supply from CFE by 25 megawatts more. Mr. Speaker, it is worthy to note that Mexico will be adding about 120 gigawatts of new generation capacity, and this will further stabilize the supply to Belize. We have been working with the PUC and BEL to add additional generation sources to our energy mix. In the immediate term, we will meet energy demands with the newly commissioned gas turbine at Westlake and the soon-to-be commissioned gas turbine in San Pedro by mid-June. In the short term, we are working with the World Bank to install 40 megawatts of battery which we expect to be operational by 2025. We are also fast-tracking the work with Saudi Arabia to install 60 megawatts of solar which is scheduled to be operational by the first quarter of 2026. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is assisting Belize with our medium-term plans by creating the investment environment to invite an additional 50 megawatts of solar and 20 megawatts of battery from the private sector and is assisting us in conducting the necessary analysis to reinforce our grid and prepare our grid to receive these new technologies and weather the new storms as a result of climate change. We anticipate that the persistent load shedding we have been experiencing will abate the once the gas turbine in San Pedro is commissioned and the supply from CFE stabilizes in June.”