An Electricity Roadmap for Belize  

Ernesto Gomez is the Director of Tariff Compliance and Standards of the Public Utilities Commission. During the presentation, he told the media that in November of 2021, cabinet approved an electricity roadmap for the country and it’s all about going green – renewable energy. The P.U.C., as a stakeholder, participated in the dialogue. So what does that mean and how can the public be engaged in development proposals in terms of solar energy?

Ernesto Gomez

Ernesto Gomez, Director, Tariff Compliance and Standards, P.U.C.

“We are suppressing all types of developments that has to do with fossil fuel because at COP26, the government signed to the declaration whereby there will have to be seventy-five percent renewable in the consumption of electricity by 2030. And then the bigger one, by 2050, there has to be carbon neutral, so zero emissions. So that one is tough to get especially when you are talking about not only about electricity, but energy in general which is all the vehicles and everything that is used. But the 2030 one, we are almost there as we are now. But if we keep adding generators with fossil fuel, we are going to spoil it really. We have to open up the law to be able to bring in more players and for the rooftop solar, we have like an automatic clause system so once you meet the criteria, you are in. To that then, we are just about to release the concept paper to the public on the different forms of rooftop solars and distributed generation. The different categories: the small ones, the large ones and how they would work.”