Costa Rica’s Spending on Safe Energy Pays Off; Now Runs Fully on Renewable Energy

It has emerged that Costa Rica has been using renewable energy since the beginning of this year, which many environmental activists and campaigners have welcomed.

The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (CREI) said last week that the country has been using nothing but renewable energy for the past 75 days. Although Costa Rica is a relative small country, activists say that for it to be running on strictly renewable energy is truly unprecedented.

Costa Rica recorded high rainfalls this year, and the rain was directed to a number of hydroelectric plants that have been built in the country for generation of electricity.

CREI said no fossil fuels were used to generate electricity since December last year in Costa Rica. In addition to the hydroelectric plants, Costa Rica also has a number of geothermal energy sites. Geothermal energy provides about 10% of energy reserves in the country. It is said that the new geothermal projects are expected to be developed next year to further boost energy generation in the country. The geothermal project will consist of three plants, the first of which will generate 55 MW, and two others that will generate 50 MW apiece. This energy is expected to generate electricity at a cost of around five cents per kilowatt hour, and will help Costa Rica achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by the year 2021.

An energy expert with Clean Technica-Jake Richardson told Science Alert that it is a step in the right direction, but the country needs to think about other sources of renewable energy. When there is severe drought, the country can face a major energy crisis.

“It’s good news that more geothermal will be coming on board, as there are obvious downsides of being too reliant on hydropower, especially run-of-the-river systems, which can be hindered by seasonal changes in water flow. Droughts can also severely impact power supplies. And there are also some environmental downsides to hydroelectric dams more generally, namely the impact on riparian ecosystems and passing fish,” he said.

But it looks like the Costa Rican government had already thought about that issue. The government has approved more than $958 million to be used in the geothermal energy project. The geothermal energy project is even being funded by the Japanese government and the European Investment Bank.

Independent observer say Costa Rica has been able to spend so much on renewable energy because it doesn’t need to spend anything on defense. The country has not had a military since 1948.

According to the World Economic Forum, in terms of electricity coverage, Costa Rica supplied power to 99.4 percent of all households, second in Central America only to Uruguay. In terms of energy performance architecture it is second, only behind Colombia.

In the Central American region, Costa Rica is not the only country currently running on green energy. Bonaire, a Dutch island territory off the coast of Venezuela, operates at nearly 100% renewable energy, and will likely reach that milestone soon with the help of an alternative safe energy source called…. algae.

In Europe, Iceland already gets all of its electricity from renewable energy sources. About 85% of all its energy is produced by geothermal and hydro-power sources. Three other European countries (Sweden, Bulgaria, and Estonia) have already hit their 2020 renewable energy goals. Denmark too wants to join the list by completely migrating to renewable energy by 2050.