New problem in Mexico blacks out Belize

As if it didn’t have enough to worry about, Belize Electricity Limited was rocked this afternoon by another problem across the Mexcian border which resulted in much of the country experiencing a blackout for over an hour. A failure in a Mexican high voltage transmision line interrupted the flow of power to Belize, which at this time of the year depends almost entirely on Mexico for electricity during non-peak hours. The problem appears to be unrelated to the shutdown of the Merida Three Power Plant which has made Mexican power unavailable to Belize during the peak hours of six to nine p.m. BEL has been just scraping by with its eight diesel generators and limited current from Cayo’s Mollejon Hydro Facility, which during the dry season does not have the water flow to produce electricity at anything near its full capacity. The Mexican cutoff began on March 13th and the Merida Three Plant is scheduled to come back on line by April 4th. If it does not BEL will be forced to bring in standby portable generators from abroad.