Discussing Energy Access in Belize

An Energy Access workshop was held in Belize City on Wednesday to highlight the implementation of best practices in Belize while developing concrete steps in mainstreaming energy indicators.  The development of an institutionalized Energy Access indicator will play a significant role in energy planning as a statistical tool to communicate to stakeholders and decision-makers the need of energy services among the underserved populations.

Michel Chebat

Michel Chebat, Minister of Public Utilities

“This is the Energy Access workshop and it is being carried out in conjunction with Lait Up Belize, sponsored by the European Union.  As you heard, Dr. Devon Gardner is one of our facilitators here today and so the idea behind this workshop is to have discussions to see how we can, in one way, improve access to energy, not only in Belize but across CARICOM, and as you know, this is also part of our Energy Month which is celebrated in November.  As you know, in Belize, unfortunately we do not yet have a hundred percent of our citizens with access to electricity and so part of our discussion here is really to see how we can get more citizens connected.  As you know, the pandemic showed us that teaching became critical online and so electricity plays an important role in the development of our people.  We are currently working on some micro-grids for some of the villages in the south.  We are hoping to soon be able to launch the micro-grid that’s going to be connecting three communities down there and we are hoping to have that in December.  And we are looking at alternative ways to how we can increase the coverage across the country.”