Renewables Fuel 100% Of Costa Rica's Energy Needs

Costa Rica has managed to get 100 percent of its energy from renewable energy in the last 75 days of this year, says the state-run Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), according to thinkprogress.

The Latin American country used no coal or other fossil fuels this year, as heavy rains kept its hydroelectric power plants running. Wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy have helped to power that country.

"The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica," ICE announced in a Spanish press release this week.

The reliance on renewable energy has helped the nation bring down electricity rates by 12 percent. It is expected that the rates will reduce further for the Costa Rican customers in the second quarter of 2015.

Undeniably, Costa Rica is a a small country with an area of just 51,000 square kilometers, a population of 4.8 million people and primary industries of tourism and agriculture, not "heavy, energy-intensive industries such as mining or manufacturing," according to sciencealert.  Still, Costa Rica has managed to be the first country to achieve a highly acclaimed record of 100% energy from renewable sources.

The outstanding record on efficient, clean and cheap electricity generation has put it on the second rank of Latin America, in order to give a "household coverage rate of 99.4 per cent" at the lowest rates in the region, according to cleantechnica.

In 2009, Costa Rica announced its plan of converting into a carbon-neutral country by 2021. While Costa Rica gets 88 percent of its total electricity from renewable sources, hydroelectric plants supply about 68 percent of that electricity, even as geothermal plants provide about 15 percent, wind power provides 5 percent, and solar and biomass are also part of its renewable blend.

However, because of its reliance on renewables, Costa Rica is dependent on climate changes. Even as a minor change in rainfall disrupts the country's hydro energy supplies, the hydroelectric power patterns could be altered heavily in the coming months.

 "In the case of electricity, the aim is to stop burning petroleum derivatives," Ulises Zuniga Blanco, an engineer at ICE, told Bloomberg in 2012. "The projects included in this process will contribute to this objective of carbon neutrality."

Costa Rica has been lauded in the past for its policies on environmental protection and conservation. In 2010, the country was awarded the Future Policy Award from the World Future Council, which recognized Costa Rican policies that use funds from fees and taxes to pay for preserving natural spaces. Costa Rica also pays landowners to plant trees and not cut down old-growth forests, a policy that helped increase forest cover in the country from 24 percent in 1985 to 46 percent in 2010.

Part of the reason why Costa Rica can devote so much funding to environmental issues is that the country abolished its military in 1948, allowing it to divert funds that would have gone towards defense needs to the environment, healthcare, and education.

"We are declaring peace with nature," Costa Rican ambassador Mario Fernández Silva said in 2010. "We feel a strong sense of responsibility about looking after our wealth of biodiversity. Our attitude is not progressive, it is conservative. Our view is that until we know what we have, it is our duty to protect it."