Belize was brought out of the dark yesterday evening at a few minutes to 6:00 - when after 5 weeks of upgrades - the Westlake Gas Turbine was brought back online.
It immediately boosted the failing power grid with 30 megawatts of desperately needed power. That stabilized the grid and there was no land shedding last night. Power has continued to be stable today but that hasn't stopped the Prime Minister from going to Mexico to ask CFE for more power. He discussed the strategy with the press today:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I spoke with CEO Mencias yesterday. We managed to get the the Mile 8 on the Western Highway generator going. Once that is working well will be able to barely hold on, what we'll be able to do well with out energy needs, we will be able to meet them."
"And when we get the San Pedro 21 megawatt generator going that then I will also ensure that we can be self-sufficient. Well, let us not forget that when we connect to CFE, there are certain hours of the day like this, which is like around 2:00 in the morning, we can get energy at $0.02 and $0.03 per kilowatt. So the plan is we are going to ask CFE if they could increase the maximum that they can sell to Belize. Presently it's at 55 megawatts and we're hoping that we will get at least a 60, because when they can give us a 60, because it's cheaper, we we buy from them and then when it's more expensive, then we could switch over. So it's a matter of being that that balancing act to ensure that we could get the best possible rates for our consumers."
