Hydro plant has best year ever

The grey and rainy weather, which has plagued the country for the last week and much of the year, has not put all Belizeans in a somber mood. All that water from the sky has produced abundant flows for the Mollejon Hydroelectric Plant and by extension its owners, BECOL, and sole customer, BEL. Officials at the plant on the Macal River in Cayo tell News 5 that as of today the facility has produced ninety gigawatt hours of electricity for the year and by December thirty-first should reach ninety-three gigawatts. This is by far the plant’s largest annual production, easily surpassing the previous best of seventy-five gigawatt hours in 1999 and well above the take-or-pay threshold of eighty-five gigawatts. Not only was production up, but a greatly increased national demand for electricity meant that Mollejon could operate more efficiently, running at full capacity for much of the last twelve months.