Costa Rica Energy – ICE study and the State of the Nation

Report discloses a large energy potential of the country with 70% of the energy that could be obtained by water, wind and volcanoes available now.

ICE faces a big challenge, in ten years the consumption of electricity will be the double what it is today but Costa Rica has the potential to triple its generating of clean energy and supply the national needs for a long time without using resources from the National Parks.

It is a statement from the thirteenth report “State of the Nation” (Estado de la Nación) and the plan of expansion from ICE (Costa Rican Electricity Institute) from 2008 to year 2021.

Actually the capacity installed to generate electric power in the country is 1,987 megawatts per hour (MW). From this, 1,645MW (82%) is produced with renewable resources, specially water (1,409MW)

However, ICE has realized that within the national territory it is possible to generate another 4,836MW’s, without even considering the energy available inside the National Parks and the projects that the Institute has been building until now.

Such an additional capacity is mainly concentrated in the rivers (4,445MW) but, there is also a potential in the wind (308MW, in the volcanoes gases (98MW) and the waste from sugar cane (95MW).

“There is being used 29.6% of the estimated available potential, so there is still 70.4% available to be used on a medium and long term basis to meet the national demand”, said researchers Jimmy Fernandez and Natalia Araujo in their report “Challenges and Impacts in the Energy Consumption” in the program called State of the Nation.

ICE’s president, Pedro Pablo Quiroz, assures that the country needs to double its electricity generating capacity in the next 10 years in order to satisfy the demands, which means they have to double the number of projects that ICE has built in the past 59 years of existence over the next ten. With an average annual investment close to $300 million, Quiros said that within an adequate legal framework, the challenge is possible.

Luis Pacheco, ICE’s sub manager assessor said that for the Institute’s technicians, that goal is feasible and, they are already planning projects to achieve the target, considering that the economy of the country will grow between 5.3% and 5.5% every year.

ICE has foreseen the necessary projects to posses an installed capacity of 4,390MW, adding 2,132MW of clean energy and 270 MW of thermo energy (produced with fossils fuels) by year 2021.

The biggest projects are the Diquis hydroelectric plants with 622MW, which will start functioning in 2016. In addition, the Reventazon plant, with a capacity of 300MW that is planned to start in 2014. Nowadays, the most important active project is the complex Arenal-Corobici, which produces 363MW.

Good new is that even if the planned projects are built, there will still be at least a potential 2,716MW available for projects that haven’t even included in the plans.

According to Pacheco, the potential capacity of clean electric generation “is a theory concept”. “Afterwards, it will be necessary to evaluate and make studies of pre- practicality in order to know what can be developed”, he said. Nevertheless, he admitted that the country has possibilities to continue to impel its development based on the clean energy much further 2021.

Growing perspectives for the electric generation means also opportunities for private generators, which actually produce 180MW. The actual legislation authorizes the private sector to produce up to 15% of the Estate installed capacity, which means about 658MW.

Our thanks to Mauricio Herrera U and our friends at La Nación – Costa Rica’s largest Spanish circulation newspaper for their permission use this article.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.