Does anyone know anything about the recent spate of power outages on the island. Lost count on Friday, yesterday an hour at 5 pm, this morning a bit over an hour around 5 am. Just heard through the rumor mill that another is planned from 8 pm thru midnight. Just curious, are these maintenance issues or the result of the power supplier not getting a requested rate increase?

BEL SAYS BLACKOUTS CAUSED BY TRIP ON MEXICAN TRANSMISSION LINE
May 27, 2008
A nationwide power outage occurred this morning. Belize Electricity Limited says the outage was caused by a trip on the Mexican transmission line. BEL says Mexico’s Comision Federal Electricidad has reported the cause was an auto transformer fault on their transmission line. BEL says the outage occurred at 5:14 this morning and using local generation sources they were able to restore power to Ladyville by 5:51. Power was restored to Belize City at 5:54, to the Western Zone at 6:19, Southern Zone at 6:23. Power supply from Mexico was restored at 6:32 at which time power was restored in San Pedro. BEL says power was restored to Orange Walk at 6:51 due to a damaged insulator on the power line. Customers in Corozal saw their power supply restored at 7:59.
http://www.lovefm.com/ndisplay.php?nid=7934

Hmmm what about the three the day before???

Just heard the same thing, power out tonight from 8pm to midnight.

Looks like it was just a rumour, 8:25pm and we still have power.

I think it is 8 am - noon.

Power is up and down like a yoyo. At least they are clean breaks - no brown-outs.

Looks like we might be getting coerced into coughing up the 25% rate hike. That is just a killer. If you analyze the rate increases over the past few years you'll see that we are already paying a lot more than we did back then. A LOT more.

I know running power is the cost of doing business, but for some folks the constant hikes are the difference between having power or not. And that is simply outrageous and greedy.

Surely some of the shareholders at BEL would be willing to take smaller dividends each year and prevent poor people from living with the barest of luxuries - electricity.

There have been several blackouts in Belize City and Belmopan during the past 5 days.

The water supply in Belmopan has been sporadic due in part to the water company not having backup generators to replenish their reservoirs when the current goes.

Many people went to work today without a bath as the water came on at 8.

Corozal and Orange Walk are experiencing blackouts again this a.m. due to some faulty insulator...

Power has just gone off in Belmopan so sorry if you were in the shower all soaped up.

it could be worse, says Lan of Belize First !!!

Businesses in Zanzibar are closing down and residents are bemused as a power cut affecting the whole of the Tanzanian island enters its eighth day.

The BBC's Freddie Boswell in Zanzibar says there has been little official information about the blackout.

It began after a massive power failure in Tanzania; power was restored quickly on the mainland, but not in Zanzibar.

There are concerns that without running water, usually pumped into homes, there could be an outbreak of cholera.

It is Zanzibar's worst power crisis for years, our correspondent says.

Apparently it is a nation wide blackout Cayo, Stann Creek, Belize City.

Internet is mighty speedy right now I guess especially few if anyone is yakking on Skype and other VOIP ;-)

The U.D.P. radio station has been silenced.

Callers on LOVE FM which has back generators are raging about the blackout.

All the Christian radio stations appear to have backup generators.

People from Ambergris Caye are especially indignant saying they provide a lot of income to Belize etc.

Power is now back up - 30 minutes total down time - at least in Belmopan which is one of the few population centers that still has full backup diesels in place.

Can't get LOVE-FM on the web, though.

Some of our friends don't understand why, when the power goes out, we don't just run and get the generator cranked up and run it til the power comes back on. We don't because we know we may need to conserve our fuel. What if the power goes out for days, or even weeks? Then where will we get the fuel from to run the genset?

After Hurricane Keith a friend loaned us a generator. We ran it one hour per day. Enough to not sit in the dark whilst eating dinner. You might be amazed and pleasantly surprised at how much you can live without - and still be smiling and laughing. Those 8 weeks of no power after the storm was period when our family learned to pull together and all work as a team to make sure we were all comfortable as a family unit - not a bunch of individuals living in the same house that get together in the evenings and on weekends.

Yep, everybody gets tire of my Pollyanna attitude - but I much prefer being happy than complaining.

from a friend....

As I write this power is down again in Belize City and people are listening on their car radios and calling and ranting on their cell phones.

I just came down from my observation post and can see the smoke pumping out of the Belmopan power station so I think they are up and running the capital.

On radio Senator Hulse is raging about the U.D.P. assaults on our constitution and the approach G.O.B. is using trying to conduct the "for show" consultations. The committee conducting these consultations is headed by Patrick Faber and John Saldivar. And this is the first time I've heard about these consulotations - nothing in the press, radio or T.V.

I vaguely recall LOVE FM saying sometime ago only their essentials were on backup as generators are expensive to procure and run.

From my days at the mighty Radio Belize I recall we had a huge generator Caterpillar like 125 KW just for the studios and an even larger one at the transmitting towers. We had 10,000 watts on FM and a thousand on shortwave and a 5 thousand on medium wave.

The SW was heard around the world but was discontinued about 10 years ago. Medium wave was phased out in favour of FM.

The SW tower is still standing in Belmopan.

Today everything is F.M. and much lower power and less coverage.

Ma,n those Christian Radio stations have some good panelists and good mix of Belizeans and from their accents U.S.A.ners and are giving G.O.B. beans about the attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms.