Press Release – September 12, 2024 – Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) informs its Customers and the public that the San Pedro Gas Turbine (San Pedro GT) was successfully commissioned and load tested up to its rated capacity of 21 MW last week Thursday, September 5. However, the San Pedro GT is currently unavailable to supply power into the grid because of the failure (for a second time) of one of the three transformers that is needed to connect it to the grid, which occurred in the early morning of Saturday, September 7.
Initially, the San Pedro GT was scheduled to be fully commissioned by early June. Unfortunately, one of the transformers failed during the commissioning process. Our teams worked quickly to procure a replacement transformer that was to be delivered on-site and installed by the end of July. However, the shipment was significantly delayed due to the impacts of Hurricane Beryl on shipping routes and logistics and the replacement transformer eventually arrived on-site in the first week of August.
Our teams took every step necessary to ensure the integrity of the commissioning process for the three step-up transformers (including the replacement transformer) given the prior failure. No significant difficulties were encountered during the commissioning process for the transformers which was completed on August 16. However, the replacement transformer failed just after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 7.
BEL and the installation contractor are conducting a thorough assessment of this recent failure, and we are already procuring a short-term solution replacement transformer that we expect to install before the end of the year. In the meantime, we continue to monitor the power demand in San Pedro and will implement our contingency plan to protect the single submarine cable interconnection to the island if necessary.
We will keep you informed of further developments as we work diligently to provide you with safe and reliable power supply in San Pedro and throughout Belize.
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