Electricity bill goes down a little for social rate customers

John Avery

The Public Utilities Commission, following a request from Belize Electricity Limited in early April, has approved a nominal reduction in the cost of energy per kilowatt hour for social rate consumers which is even less than was sought by B.E.L.  It’s a negligible markdown of one percent which represents a discount of three cents per kilowatt hour and it succeeds a significant spike of seventeen percent in energy costs which took effect in January.  The new price cut approved will only be enjoyed by consumers being billed at the social rate.  Today, PUC Chairman John Avery shared details of their initial decision to honor B.E.L.’s application in the 2013 Annual Revenue Proceeding.

John Avery, Chairman, Public Utilities Commission

“In B.E.L.’s submission, they proposed a mean electricity rate for the upcoming annual tariff period of forty-seven point nine three cents as opposed to the forty-eight point eight six cents per kilowatt hour for the electricity rate that the commission had approved on January eleventh of this year. You may recall we conducted an exercise in December and January in which we reviewed the final decision for the 2012 ARP and as a consequence of some significant increases in the cost of power supply in Mexico and significant reduction in the amount of electricity supplied by BELCOGEN and from the hydro sources in Belize, we were forced to increase the rates effective January first in order to cover shortfall of about forty-five million dollars in additional electricity cost that B.E.L. incurred due to the factors I just told you—being hire purchases from CFE and less production from BELCOGEN and BECOL. Now in this ARP, we are again reviewing that very period that we did in the amendment decision and so the forty-four million dollars that we made in corrections that resulted in the increase in January.”