BEL Says More Power Outages to Come

Over the weekend, there were a number of power outages that had to be endured and according to Belize Electricity Limited, bad weather and equipment maintenance is to blame. On Friday night the power went out countrywide and it was due in part to a ground wire that broke away from a pole near the Buena Vista Substation and caused a fault on the transmission line between Mexico and Belize. The outage was extended because the Gas Turbine is currently out of service for maintenance for two weeks.

A release from BEL says that because the Gas Turbine was out of service the restoration had to be coordinated with Belize Electric Company Limited and Belize Aquaculture Limited. Hydro Maya Limited has also informed BEL that their generating equipment has suffered damage due to a mechanical failure and consequently will be out of service while the repairs are being completed.

On Sunday Belize City lost power around 2:30pm due to a lightning arrestor failure. The arrestor was replaced and power was restored shortly before five thirty. Other power outages were reported on Sunday night and Monday along the Western and Southern Highway. To make matters worse, CFE had limited the supply to BEL so as to complete repairs to their system. Those restoration works at CFE were supposed to be completed within three months. However, BEL has been informed that CFE continues to experience generation problems and will have to take out another one of their large generators for maintenance. BEL says that this can worsen the current power supply situation, which is already critical but they will keep the public informed of any further developments.