Power Crisis! Weekend Outages Scheduled

Belize’s Public Utilities Commission has warned consumers of electricity to brace for more frequent and perhaps more prolonged power outages in the weeks ahead. The primary cause of the problem is the break-off of supply from Mexico, from the Comisión Federal de Electricidad. But adding to the crisis is the failure of the BEL Gas Turbine plant at Mile 8 to produce power to relieve the emergency.

Here on Ambergris Caye, we already see an arsenal of portable generators already up and running behind the old BEL power plant. We only hope that these will be enough to sustain power on the island and not cause multiple power outages, as these can be detrimental to our tourism industry that is already in “slow motion”.

Already announced for this weekend are scheduled power outages for Saturday and Sunday:

Saturday, July 18, 2009 will be Feeder 1 which is all of Barrier Reef Dr. This will commence at 6:00am until 12:00Noon

Sunday, July 19, 2009 will be Feeder 4 which is all of Angel Coral Dr from Hol Chan Office, Coconut Dr., to the end of the line @ Boca Ciega. This will commence at 6:00am until 12:00Noon

Portable generators set up behind BEL Power Plant