Belize Electricity Limited advises its customers in San Pedro Town that the supply of electricity will be temporarily interrupted over the weekend during the following dates and times:
*Saturday, July 25, from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon - Areas to be affected: Angel Coral Street, Coconut Drive, Sea Grape Drive, Holiday Land, Mosquito Coast and Boca Ciega.
*Sunday, July 26, 2009, all of Barrier Reef Drive from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Vehicular traffic will be restricted on all of Barrier Reef Drive while the Company conducts works to upgrade the distribution system in the area. BEL recommends that pedestrians avoid the area during this time. Pedestrians who may need to traffic the area are asked to exercise extreme caution.
Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) has sent out a press release stating that it currently has sufficient generation in place to meet the country’s energy demand over the next few days. Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) advised that following the inspection of the Merida III generating unit, they have determined that the unit needs to be taken out of service until the middle of August. In the meantime, CFE is able to supply Belize with approximately 15 per cent of its energy demand. However, the cost of power from CFE at this time is much higher than normal and BEL will only take power from CFE as a last option.
In addition to CFE, BEL is currently taking approximately 16 megawatts (MW) of power from Belize Aquaculture Limited and 32.5 MW from Belize Electric Company Limited. Hydro Maya remains off line, while repairs are being carried out to its generating equipment. The nozzle and the tools for the repairs to the Gas Turbine have arrived and BEL plans to complete works on the Gas Turbine by July 24, 2009.If any planned power outages are necessary, BEL will provide customers with advanced notice, where possible.
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
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.
