BEL says hydro makes rates lowest in Caribbean

While on the subject of official statistics, Belize Electricity Limited issued a few of its own today, and while their headline was more hopeful than accurate, the company did make a valid point: that reliance on petroleum for electricity is an invitation to disaster. Quoting a recent survey carried out by CARILEC, the regional association of electric companies, BEL says it’s rates for small residential, small commercial and industrial customers are the lowest in the Caribbean–actually the lowest in the English speaking Caribbean with the exception of oil rich Trinidad and Tobago. According to the survey, a consumer who uses four hundred kilowatt hours per month pays the equivalent of U.S. seventy-two dollars and seventy-five cents in Belize, while the same consumption in Grand Cayman runs almost a hundred dollars and the poor resident of Turks and Caicos pays almost one hundred and twenty-five. BEL’s CEO, Lynn Young, attributed the price difference to the fact that Belize generates much of it’s power from hydroelectricity, while most of the Caribbean must rely on imported oil, which has recently skyrocketed in price. Young added that construction of the Chalillo project should reduce BEL’s costs by a further five to ten percent.