B.E.L. hosts regional utilities meeting
This week over fifty representatives from utility companies all over the Caribbean are in Belize to discuss the state of the energy industry post September eleventh. The meeting is part of the annual C.E.O. symposium held for Chief Executive Officers to plan strategies for the future with the members of the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation, CARILEC. In addition to being hosted by Belize, the new chairman of CARILEC is none other than President and C.E.O. of Belize Electricity Limited, Lynn Young. According to Young, the organisation can ultimately help B.E.L. improve the service the company provides to Belizeans.
Lynn Young, CEO, B.E.L./Chairman, CARILEC
“It was formed with the objective of helping the utilities to improve their performances and improve the delivery of services. Because I think it was recognised that power, reliable and affordable power is one of the most important ingredients in the development of our countries in this region. And we believe that by pooling our resources, pooling our knowledge, we can help each other to deliver on that. So for example, one of the things that CARILEC might be most well-known for is its hurricane action plan, where last year after Hurricane Iris CARILEC mobilised forces from Cayman Utilities Company, who came over and assisted us in the restoration of supply down in Placencia.”
“The big issues for us today, we’ve been looking at what’s happening post 9/11. And I think because the industry is such a capital intensive industry it burns up a lot of money putting in generators, putting in poles and transformers and for you to attract capital you need to look at the risks, hurricane risks, regulatory risks, disasters on a whole. But it’s not only natural disasters, there are also the oil price problem that we had recently, how it’s affecting utilities and also its customers. So, those are some of the pressing issues, and we’ve also had some very good presentations as to how some of the utilities are handling these things using technology, using the Internet, using communications, how they’re partnering with other utilities to get things done.”
The C.E.O. symposium ends on Thursday.
