The Ministry of Transportation is reiterating that electric buses being procured for the National Bus Company (NBC) will be powered primarily by solar energy, with Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) serving only as a backup power source.
The clarification comes after the BBA called on the NBC and the Belize City Council to pause any further expansion into electric buses until Belize’s electricity supply is confirmed stable and BEL’s grid capacity is verified. The BBA says it supports modernisation and had requested both the EV pilot data and the chance to operate the EU-donated EV buses on its own routes under real operating conditions, but both requests were denied.
The bus association laid out a detailed case for why it believes an EV transition is premature. It points to BEL’s ongoing load-shedding, driven by Mexico’s CFE curtailing supply to Belize due to high demand on its own side of the border, along with BEL’s financial strain. According to figures the BBA says were presented at BEL’s recent press conference, BEL owed CFE roughly $50 million, with the government forced to inject a $20 million subsidy to keep the lights on, leaving about $30 million outstanding, $20 million of which is already past due. The BBA also cites that the cost of power purchased from CFE exceeds what the PUC allows BEL to charge customers, meaning BEL loses money on every kilowatt-hour of CFE power it buys, roughly half of what Belize consumes.
The ministry said its position on the charging infrastructure has been communicated publicly on multiple occasions and remains unchanged: solar first, BEL second.
