As Belize pushes for greater energy security, two major renewable-energy projects remain stuck in the pipeline. Prime Minister John Briceño says funding for the multimillion-dollar Saudi solar project has already been approved, but the process is taking years. A separate energy-storage project also hit an unusual roadblock: a squatter occupying the project site.
Prime Minister John Briceño
“The first thing we did before you even asked is trying to get a loan from the Saudi’s. While they approved it immediately, it takes a long process to go through with them. They are a huge country with many other issues they are dealing with. So we are at the point where we are starting to get the people interested that will be prepared to do the solar project. We have a hundred million dollars loan from the World Bank where we want to do storage, forty megawatts and why was there a delay? There was a delay because there was this person who was squatting on the land owned by BEL, in San Pedro where he was supposedly protecting the iguanas. He lived for two years and it was a scam. I met with the official from the World Bank on Wednesday and Thursday and told them when nameless bureaucrats Washington just hold back a project because of something when he was there illegal, it is not like it is the only sanctuary for the Iguanas. You keep us back, we could have already had that project going. That would have allowed us to buy forty megawatts of energy from Mexico at two or three oclock in the morning when it is only three or four cents.”
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