Ground broken on new bagasse fueled power plant
It’s a project that has been talked about for years … and today the further diversification of Belize’s energy supply moved one step closer to reality. News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports from Tower Hill.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Today officials of Belize Sugar Industries and government officials broke ground for what will be the single largest private investment in the country: Belcogen. The stand alone power plant is expected to be in commercial operation by April 2009 and produce thirty-one point five megawatts of power from hundreds of tonnes of bagasse.
Richard Harris, Project Director, Belcogen
“Bagasse is the fiber that’s left over after you mill sugar cane. For years, Belize Sugar has been using that bagasse, the fiber, in its boilers to generate power and steam for its own internal operations. What we are doing with this project is to set up a separate company to use that bagasse that B.S.I.’s been using but to install far more efficient boilers, far more efficient turbine therefore we are able to create far more energy.”
According to Belcogen’s Project Director Richard Harris, later this month, Chinese contractors out of Shanghai will begin construction at the site.
Richard Harris
“If you look down there, the slightly greyer area, that is where the actual power plant is going to be sited and constructed alongside the existing B.S.I. facility and then it’ll be delivering electricity through a B.E.L. interconnection that goes out across the existing bagasse pile at the moment.”
The energy generated at the plant will be used to supply power to Belize Sugar Industries and the national grid, through a power purchase agreement for thirteen point five megawatts of current with Belize Electricity Limited.
Lynn Young, Chief Executive Officer, B.E.L.
“For us it’s important because one, being from bagasse, the price, there is a little bit of an index to oil prices in the price here but it won’t go up, definitely not as fast as oil prices so it gives us a little bit of stability in our rates, similar to what we do with the hydro.”
B.E.L.’s Chief Executive Officer says while the rates won’t go down, consumers won’t be paying more either.
Lynn Young
“All the things that we are doing has ensure that the prices in Belize are nowhere where it would have been had we not been putting in these hydro projects, etc. If you look at say Bermuda, Cayman, Barbados, prices are in the order of thirty cents U.S. per kilowatt hour, that’s like sixty cents Belize. We’ve been able to maintain prices down at forty-four cents Belize.”
The idea of using bagasse as a renewable energy source has been on the table for almost a decade, a delay caused mostly by the project’s high price tag of one hundred and twenty four million dollars. While B.S.I. is assuming the lion’s share of the investment, an alphabet soup of international creditors including the CDB, the IDB, ING, FCIB and the IIC have signed on to the idea. According to Belize Sugar Industries’ Chief Executive Officer Joey Montalvo, that shift is part of the global search for new ways of producing power.
Jose “Joey” Montalvo, Chief Executive Officer, Belize Sugar Industries
“Belize would stand proud; it supports the decision by CARICOM, what we are doing here today, to locate climate change. We need to be committed towards improving the environment to reduce the tyranny of oil, to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and I think that is the way to go and it all starts with the first step and I think we’ve done many steps to get here but it is quite a lot more to go and I think we will get there, beyond where we are right now.”
But right now poor cane quality and evaporating international markets have left many caneros uncertain of the future. Montalvo believes the tradition of sugar production in the north will continue if farmers make the necessary changes.
Jose “Joey” Montalvo
“Sixty thousand acres of cane could, at thirty tonnes cane per acre which is not far fetched, could give you one point eight million tonnes of cane at a T.C.T.S. of nine tonnes cane per one tonne sugar, which is not far fetched, with all the improvements in sugar that we are working towards. Two hundred tonnes of sugar or twice what we are producing right now is certainly not far ahead, I’d say maybe ten years. We will get there, I feel very optimistic about it.”
And to be sure, B.S.I. and G.O.B. are hoping that optimism will translate into success for the Belcogen project and its expected benefits to the Belizean environment and economy. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
Belcogen is fully owned by Belize Sugar Industries Limited. In related news, B.E.L. says in addition to ongoing work at the Vaca Hydro project on the Macal River, the company is also in talks with the Bowen Group’s shrimp farm in the south to explore the use of its heavy fuel oil plant as an additional energy source.
