Will CFE change its stance following Mexico’s elections?

One of the saving graces for BEL was its ability to work with Belize’s Ambassador to Mexico to request additional support from Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). CFE normally supplied up to 55 megawatts to the grid, but in April, the state-owned company reduced its supply to 30 megawatts during the day and zero during the night. However, despite Mexico facing its own energy woes, this week, CFE agreed to increase the supply by 10 megawatts during the day and fifteen during the night. But how long will the country continue to extend the gesture of goodwill? Well, it’s anybody’s guess because this Sunday Mexicans will head to the polls to elect a new government. And if the new government isn’t as friendly with Belize, there is a possibility CFE might move to reduce its supply once again. Today, we asked Karique Marin, BEL’s Manager of Distribution Planning & Engineering, about the possibility and if BEL is putting in place a contingency plan to deal with such an occurrence.

Karique Marin, Manager of Distribution Planning and Engineering: “Recently CFE has allowed us 40 megawatts during the day and 15 megawatts at night. What that has done is during these periods we do not need to utilize our internal sources as much as we typically would if we’re not getting any energy from Mexico. So our intentions there is to of course reduce the amounts of basically save our internal resources as much as possible so that should there be a need from CFE to reduce their supply to us then we would have to then rely back on the sources in country. So that is the idea. Of course with the additional gas turbine going in then we would have that 20 megawatts and then be able to supply or have more generation available.”

Reporter: But that would be like a gap in time if that is changed over. If that is changed this weekend and the gas turbine doesn’t come on until June 15 so is there any plan in place if something happens within this weekend and June 15 ? 
Karique Marin, Manager of Distribution Planning and Engineering: “What we will do during that time, and we do understand the gap, that is the gap between now and June 15th when that gas turbine comes online. What we will do is continue to rely on our large customers asking them for support. Work with the community to do the energy efficiency programs, do things such as doing family time so instead of having three rooms with ACs being on all do one movie time at night time with one AC on. That is a way in which we can do these energy conservation methods that will help us to get through that difficult time.”

Notably, this month, Prime Minister Briceno traveled to Mexico and stated that he was able to meet with CFE representatives and discussed increasing power supply to Belize by 20 megawatts.