Costa Rica Powered by Renewable Energy for 75 Days!

Heavy rainfall in Costa Rica turns out to have a good effect to the environment.  Instead of using fossil fuel to run the electricity, the country relied almost entirely on four hydropower plants to generate electricity where the remaining power comes from wind, solar and geothermal plants.

Costa Rica is included in one of the country which has excellent track record in using renewable energy to generate electricity and therefore saving the environment. Last year itself, 80% of the electricity is generated from hydropower plants and as of 2010, 13% of the country’s power comes from geothermal plants.

What happened when there is not enough rainfall? Last year, Costa Rica experienced drought conditions and needed to rely on diesel fuel for backup. To solve this issue, ICE (Costa Rican Electricity Institute) is planning to build a geothermal plant which will tap into the country’s rich volcano resources as one of the power source. The plant costs up to $958 million and it has been already approved.

For the electricity coverage, Costa Rica supplied power to 99.4 percent of all households, taking the second place with Uruguay taking the first place. As for energy performance architecture, the country is second to Colombia, according to World Economic Forum.

The Costa Rican geothermal project consists of three plants, the first plant will generate 55 MW whereas the other 2 plants will generate 50 MW per plant. This kind of energy is estimated to cost about five cents per kilowatt hour which in the end, it will help the country achieve its carbon neutrality long term project by 2021.

Costa Rica Powered by Renewable Energy for 75 Days!