Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), the country’s primary power provider, has submitted a formal regulatory proposal that would introduce automatic monthly adjustments to customer electricity bills, a shift designed to mitigate the growing financial strain caused by persistent swings in global and domestic energy costs that have outpaced current fixed tariff structures.
Filed on April 1 as part of the company’s 2025–2026 Annual Review Proceeding, the request includes a plan to maintain the existing base Mean Electricity Rate (MER) at $0.4428 per kilowatt-hour and hold the Reference Cost of Power (RCOP) steady at $0.3033 per kilowatt-hour, meaning consumers would not face an immediate jump in base electricity rates if the plan is approved by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), Belize’s independent energy regulatory body.
The core policy change at the heart of the proposal is the new automatic monthly Cost of Power (COP) adjustment framework. BEL officials argue the mechanism is a critical response to long-standing cost volatility stemming from structural characteristics of Belize’s national energy system. Though the country maintains a diversified energy portfolio that includes hydroelectric generation, biomass power, imported energy, and thermal production, this diversity has not insulated the provider from extreme price fluctuations. BEL’s filing documents show that actual power generation costs have varied from as little as $0.16 per kilowatt-hour to $0.46 per kilowatt-hour during extreme market events. When paired with ongoing delays in the development of new lower-cost energy infrastructure, these swings have eroded BEL’s financial stability, the company explained.
To prevent sudden, jarring changes to consumer bills, the proposed framework includes built-in guardrails: monthly adjustments would be capped at plus or minus 5 percent of the fixed RCOP. All adjustments would be calculated using a six-month rolling average of verified actual power costs, a design intended to smooth out short-term price spikes while ensuring changes reflect real market conditions rather than projections. Any gap between the actual cost of power and the approved RCOP would be clearly marked as a separate line item on customer bills, either as a cost recovery for underpayments or a rebate for overpayments. Deferred balances from under-recovery or over-recovery periods would be tracked systematically and settled incrementally over time, rather than being passed to consumers in a single large adjustment.
BEL says the new model would replace the current regulatory approach, which relies on infrequent but very large tariff overhauls, with smaller, more predictable monthly changes. This shift would cut the risk of sudden, unaffordable bill jumps for households and businesses while improving overall transparency around how power costs are calculated, the company argues.
Financial data included in the filing underscores the urgency of BEL’s request. For the 2024–2025 regulatory period, the provider recorded an under-recovery of roughly $6.7 million, meaning actual costs were $6.7 million higher than revenue collected from current tariffs. That gap is projected to balloon to $22.8 million for 2025–2026, and grow further to $40.35 million in 2026–2027 before falling to $25.78 million in 2027–2028. Cumulative regulatory under-recovery balances could exceed $110 million by 2027, a level that would create severe cash flow risks for the company, BEL forecasts. Under the proposed monthly adjustment system, the company projects incremental monthly recoveries would fall between $1.3 million and $1.6 million, a gradual pace that would steadily shrink the growing deferred balance over the coming years. The proposal now awaits review and a final ruling from the PUC.