Caye Caulker, the slow-paced Belizean island famous for lobster and 'go slow' slogans, has just plugged into the national electricity grid for the first time. Belize Electricity Limited confirmed the connection on September 25, linking the island to San Pedro on nearby Ambergris Caye via a new 34.5-kilovolt transmission line, including a submarine cable under the sea between the two cayes.
Until now, Caye Caulker ran entirely on diesel generators. The switchover is part of BEL's Seventh Power Project, backed in part by the Caribbean Development Bank, and includes a new switching station in San Pedro and a substation on Caye Caulker. BEL estimates the installation cost at roughly BZ$15 million, though a final figure hasn't been confirmed. The utility first floated the idea back in 2019 and took delivery of the submarine cable in 2023, so this has been years in the making.
The main drivers are reliability and growth. BEL projects that the island's peak electricity demand could more than double by 2040, fuelled by residential building and tourism development — the guesthouses, dive shops and restaurants that make the car-free caye a favourite with backpackers and divers. Grid power should cut diesel dependence and reduce system losses, with the old generators staying put as a local backup and a gas turbine in San Pedro available as a second fallback.
Not everyone on the island is cheering. Some residents — Hicaqueños — have pointed out that Caye Caulker's standalone diesel system previously kept the lights on when the national grid went down. Now that the island is networked into the country's supply, there are worries it could get caught up in blackouts or load shedding affecting the mainland. BEL's answer is the retained generators and the San Pedro turbine, but the utility concedes the connection alone doesn't make the island immune to national outages. How the setup performs through the next major grid failure will be the real test.
For travellers, the practical impact is modest but real: more stable power for hotels, dive operations and beach bars, and fewer generator-driven hiccups as the island grows. Caye Caulker remains a deliberately low-key counterpoint to busier Ambergris Caye — no high-rises, sandy streets, split-style swimming spots and some of the cheapest diving on the Belize Barrier Reef. If anything, the grid upgrade signals the island is investing to handle more visitors without changing its character. Go now before word spreads further.
