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While BEL beamed with boasts of its ever expanding services on San Pedro, the island just across the channel, Caye Caulker, is still getting its electricity from diesel generators.

General Manager Fuller says that the decommissioning of those long running generators is a mere 2 years away.

Sean Fuller, General Manager, Commercial & Retail Services
"The loan has been approved, the environmental clearance from the DOE has been approved. We are now in the process of going through the bidding process to select a vendor to supply the cable and install the cable. We will commence actually work on the ground immediately. We know that by the end of 2020 the cable will be installed and we're hoping to energize that cable link late 2020 or early 2021."

"Right now we have one cable that has the capacity to serve San Pedro and Caye Caulker for the next few years but as I mentioned in my remarks earlier, we have already started the analysis of the project to install a second redundant higher capacity submarine cable from the mainland to San Pedro to facilitate the advancement of growth in the use of energy. We are also very much interested in looking at solar technology for the islands. We're currently doing a wind study countrywide to determine if there's any potential for wind generation and so yes we are very much prepared for the increased growth in energy needs for the two islands and subsequent islands. There is a plan afoot to also extend that submarine cable to Caye Chapel and so we're well prepared with the existing capacity and the planned capacity for the new cable that we plan to install by late 2021 or early 2022."

Channel 7

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