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Dr. Peter Allen, CEO - Ministry of Energy
"We are co-hosting this with OLADE, is the acronym for the Latin American Energy Organization and as a member of OLADE we have collaboratively worked on a series of different standards for the region. One of those is information systems. So OLADE have developed a common regional energy information system and it designed so that we can compare prices, costs, quantities and sources of energy and how we use energy across the region, so that we can both compare always looking for best practices. The workshop this week invites most of our stakeholders in the energy system both users and producers of energy. To learn how to use this system we'll make it available free of cost. The department of energy will administer the system and make the information freely available to everybody including the media."

Alex Courtenay, 7News
"So after all of this data have been compiled, what kind of analysis are we looking for, what are we looking to get out of having access to all of this information?"

Dr. Peter Allen, CEO - Ministry of Energy
"The energy department has been very busy for a number of years. I'm a relatively new comer to the energy system and they've already conducted lots of important studies. The first of which was analysis of the broad sector and then different analysis within the sector. For example, within Belize our analysis suggest that we tend to use energy rather inefficiently. Compared to our neighbors in Mexico, we use approximately twice as much energy for each individual Belizean than each individual Mexican. Sometimes that's because of our building codes. Sometimes it's because our electrical appliances are not the most efficient. Sometimes it's because our air conditioners are leaking cold air out. The general public knows these type of things. One of the main users of inefficient energy is the transport sector as well, old vehicles and old buses which do fairly low miles per gallon. The analysis also suggests that we spend a significant amount of our foreign currency reserves to pay for the importation of fossil fuel. All for energy from different sources. And the analysis also suggests that there are many Belizeans especially in rural communities that do not have access to electrical energy. Based on those analyses, we plan for where we would like to see ourselves as a country 10-20 years from now, but it's all based on information and evidence."

The Energy Information Management System will also used in advancing Belize's use of renewable energy resources.