Costa Rica beats own record, relies solely on renewables for 94 days

Wind farm in Costa Rica. Author: Christian Haugen. Licence: Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic.

August 13 (SeeNews) - The Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE) said Wednesday that renewables have generated 100% of the country's power for 94 consecutive days.

The new period without resorting to fossil fuels started on May 8 and ended on August 9. Earlier this year, from January 1 to March 16, Costa Rica reached 75 days generating 100% of its power from renewables.

ICE noted geothermal and hydropower plants (HPP) were the main energy sources used during the period. More details in the table below.

Source	Generation
Hydropower	77.6%
Geothermal	12.34%
Wind	10.05%
Solar	0.01%

The 100% renewables run came to an end on August 10, when the government had to fire up the Garabito thermal power plant, which uses bunker fuel, to generate 1% of the energy required in the country.

This year alone, Costa Rica has accumulated 188 days without resorting to conventional sources of power to meet electricity demand.

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