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Costa Rica renewable success story still depending too much on rain

Costa Rica renewable success story still depending too much on rain Miravalles V - Ormat unit, Costa Rica (source: Ormat Technologies)
Francisco Rojas 27 Mar 2015

Costa Rica is doing great developments to go 100% renewable, but hydro has the lion's share of the energy generation. Can geothermal add some balance?

Costa Rica has appeared a lot lately in the news, mostly thanks to the country’s great performance in renewable energy development and usage. This is obviously great news and it is also admirable that a country is making use of their vast green energy potential and at the same time saving money and reducing carbon emissions.

There is one caveat to this success story, the over-dependence on hydropower for energy generation. As related by a local news source, the country’s energy mix is composed of 80% hydropower and only 20% of renewable is wind and geothermal.

The problem here is that hydro depends too much on the weather. Water scarcity have had massive impacts on energy generation in the past, specially a massive draught back on 2007.

This is the reason the country needs to diversify its energy sources and  geothermal can be the best bet, thanks to its baseload capability and the latent geothermal potential of Costa Rica.

Source: La Opinión