BEL Explains San Pedro Power Outage
On Sunday evening, San Pedro Town experienced a power blackout after a transformer owned by Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) malfunctioned near Ramon’s Village Resort, shortly after 6:00 p.m. Residents reported hearing a loud noise resembling an explosion.
BEL confirmed the outage resulted from a hardware failure on the overhead segment of the 34.5 kV sub-transmission line that delivers electricity to the island. This line links San Pedro to the national grid via a network of submarine, underground, and overhead cables.
Adding to the challenge, BEL's San Pedro Gas Turbine, which normally serves as a backup power source, could not be started because it depends on the same damaged transmission line. The company also noted that adverse weather conditions slowed down the repair process.
BEL stated, "The outage was caused by a hardware fault on the overhead portion of the 34.5 kV sub-transmission line supplying power to the island."
"The San Pedro Gas Turbine could not be activated as it relies on the damaged transmission line," the company explained.
BEL mentioned, "Bad weather delayed restoration efforts."
Summary: A transformer failure on San Pedro's main power line caused a blackout, with challenges in backup power activation and weather delays prolonging the outage.