QCOSTARICA — Keeping the lights on for the coming dry season is the reason the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) – State power and light company – is negotiating in the Regional Electricity Market (MER) to purchase backup energy.
This is a preventive measure to face next year’s dry season and rule out any possibility of blackouts like those experienced in 2024.
ICE’s announcement comes at a time when rainfall seems irregular, since, up to this point, the rainy season has not been similar to other periods.
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Included on the ICE list of possible vendors are Gatún and AES, both from Panama, for the purchase of up to 200 megawatts of power.
“The negotiation is part of the planning to take advantage of the opportunities of the MER, while our basins recover to face the summer of 2025. We are moving forward in carrying out the announcements made months ago, to guarantee the supply of national demand with clean energy, diversifying the sources to be more resilient to climate change,” explained Marco Acuña, president of Grupo ICE.
“We plan to finalize the agreements this year, so that the country has the necessary energy at the right time. This year we awarded 86 solar megawatts and 80 wind megawatts; we continue to promote distributed generation and we will contract the available private generation,” said Verny Rojas, Electricity Manager of ICE.
Costa Rica was on the verge of power outages in mid-May of this year due to the reduction in water levels in the reservoirs that supply the country’s main hydroelectric plants and the alleged breach of contract by generating plants based on thermal sources.
ICE exports energy to other countries in the region through the MER. Between January and February 2024, there were exports to other countries, such as El Salvador.
Given the risk of rationing in May, the question arose: Could this surplus have been stored?
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According to Jorge Sancho Chaves, coordinator of energy planning and dispatch of the Electric System Operation and Control Division (Docse) of ICE, at the beginning of March, the country had the necessary energy reserves, but the problem arose when the thermal plants rented to generate electricity did not start operations on time.
Official data from Docse detail that, at 11:00 am on June 6, 2024, the demand for electricity in the country was 1,804.28 MW. Meanwhile, at the same time in 2023, it was 1,792.92 MW and in 2022 it was 1,652.1 MW.
Sancho estimated that by June, when the rainy season was established, the energy reserve would reach 140 or 150 gigawatt hours (GWh).
ICE generates electricity through hydro, wind, geothermal and thermal sources, among others. The main reservoirs and hydroelectric plants are: Arenal, Cachí, Pirrís, Reventazón and La Angostura.
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