National Energy Policy Moves to Second Round of Public Consultations

The Government of Belize is in the process of updating its National Energy Policy 2011, with technical assistance from the European Union. The exercise has, to date, resulted in the formulation of a document referred to as the Green Paper. The Green Paper was evaluated by Cabinet earlier this month and given the green light. The document is described as a policy framework that builds on opportunities for more sustainable approaches in energy management and infrastructural development to decentralize the distribution of energy resources. It also looks at measures to achieve national energy security. The Belize National Energy Policy development process is now in its second round of stakeholder consultations which began this morning in Belize City. Ryan Cobb told us more.

Ryan Cobb

Ryan Cobb, Energy Director, Ministry of Public Utilities and Energy

“This policy is stated around seven main pillars. These are all centered on having greater energy security when it comes to electricity generation, generation from more renewable energy sources, also the choice of generation to see how we can allow distributed generation within the country that means your rooftop solar for residents, commercial, industries, were also looking at energy security, such as fuels for vehicles, hydrocarbons. But we are also looking at emerging technologies such as electric transportation in the private and public sector. So, these are just some of lines that are at the core of the energy policy we are discussing today. Whenever you have new investments in the country there is to major factors they look at. One is the cost of labor and the second is the cost of energy to do the products they want to do. We currently rank somewhere within the highest in the region, within Central America, within the Caribbean we are quite competitive but within Central America we are ranked the highest and if we manage to reduce our energy cost we can get products much more competitively both nationally, regionally, and internationally. And the quality of our products is already there. We sometimes demand a premium on our products that do reach the international marker.”