Costa Maya, Q. R. — The Government of Belize has announced scheduled power cuts in their northern region to deal with an electrical curtailment from Mexico. The two-hour power interruptions, which began Friday, have affected portions of Rural Orange Walk, Rural Corozal including Free Zone, San Ignacio, Ladyville, Belmopan, Dangriga, Independence, Punta Gorda and even Belize City.
The reduction in power around northern Belize is due to the CFE (Comisión Federal de Electricidad) supply decrease to the country. Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) reduced the electrical supply to Belize after recently struggling to keep up with its own country demands.
In a statement, Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) announced scheduled power interruptions due to temporary in-country generation shortages and curtailment of supply from the CFE in Mexico.
The statement reported “Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) hereby informs our Customers that we are currently implementing scheduled power interruptions in various service areas throughout the country over the next 24 hours.
“Daily electricity demand levels have varied between 85 MW and 125 MW throughout the day over the past few weeks, while in-country generation capacity is currently a maximum of 95 MW.
“This means that BEL is currently dependent on supply from Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) in Mexico to meet demand for a significant portion of the day. CFE normally supplies up to 55 MW of capacity to the grid.
“However, we have received communication from CFE regarding challenges they are facing in sustaining the energy supply to our network, and they have advised that they may have to curtail energy supply to Belize throughout the next 48 hours.
“BEL is, therefore, preparing to address the impacts of the resulting supply shortages that may arise throughout the day: Starting at 10:00 a.m. this morning, load shedding will become necessary for various sections of the country to effectively manage the available energy supply.
“Areas likely to be impacted in the first instance include portions of Orange Walk. In the early afternoon, load shedding is expected to impact portions of Corozal, San Ignacio, Dangriga and Independence.
“Load shedding is a controlled process of temporarily reducing electricity consumption across different areas to ensure the stability and continuous operation of the national electricity grid.”
The electrical power supply reduction to Belize came after several scheduled power outages around the state of Quintana Roo. Last week, a majority of Playa del Carmen was left without electricity for around 13 hours while the CFE worked to improve the supply.
Nether side has said if the curtailed power supply from Mexico will be ongoing and continue to affect Belize residents.
