Costa Rica wants to explore low and medium-enthalpy opportunities
Las Pailas plant, Costa Rica (source: Ormat)
Francisco Rojas
22 Jun 2015
The MINAE is considering opening medium-enthalpy opportunities to private investors.
Following earlier news from Costa Rica where they are ready to build three new geothermal plants in the next 10 years and promote geothermal, the national authorities are also contemplating exploiting geothermal beyond energy generation.
Local news detail that as of now, the country only exploits high enthalpy geothermal resources and that this approach limits the number of options for other latent synergies.
The “Libertarian Movement project” seeks to allow private entities to access resources with temperatures as low as 80° C and at depths between 200 or 300 meters. For its part, the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) is also evaluating this idea
“We want to promote a decree to exploit medium-enthalpy, which corresponds to temperatures around 150° C, which is barely used in the country and could open new business opportunities in the future,” Ronny Rodriguez, chief of staff and deputy for energy in the country.
Source: Semanario Universidad
