The Green Miracle of Costa Rica: Facing the Challenge of Drought and the Temptation of Fossil Fuels

Very few countries in the world can boast of having an energy matrix powered almost entirely by renewable sources. And only one of them is a small Central American economy. Costa Rica has managed to generate up to 99% of its annual electricity with clean energy. Like Iceland, Norway, and New Zealand, it stands out as an innovative territory in this field, with the difference that it is neither a wealthy nor a developed country. The case of Costa Rica shows how decades of public policies with a clear goal can reduce dependence on fossil fuels and provide energy autonomy. The path, however, has not been free of obstacles, and now climate change and a government that is once again looking at fossil fuels have brought Central Americans to a tipping point.

According to the National Electricity Control Center, Costa Rica went from generating 99% renewable energy in 2021 to 98% in 2022 and is estimated to generate between 92% and 95% in 2023. The reason for this significant decrease in the last year is drought, as 67% of the country's renewable energy is generated from hydroelectric plants (the rest is divided among geothermal, biomass, wind, and solar energy). The lack of rainfall, in a territory where the rainy season lasts for approximately eight months, forced the country to resort to fossil fuels to start up thermal plants.

"This year has been one of the most challenging in recent decades. For example, we had the driest September on record and equally record temperatures in May and July. Moreover, demand grew by over 5%," explains Roberto Quirós, head of electricity at the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the state-owned electricity and telecommunications company.

In previous years, without the impediment of drought, Costa Rica not only powered millions of homes and tens of thousands of businesses with clean energy, but also enjoyed energy independence that allowed it to maintain relatively stable tariffs that were not affected by global geopolitical phenomena, such as the rise in energy prices due to the war in Ukraine in many nations still dependent on hydrocarbons.

### From Hydroelectric Dominance to Wind Power Boost

Costa Rica's relationship with renewable energy goes back a long way. In 1884, the capital, San José, became the third electrified city in the world, after New York and Paris. Since that time, hydroelectricity has been used to generate energy, although for several decades energy generation remained in private hands. It wasn't until the 1950s that it was nationalized with the creation of ICE.

Édgar Gutiérrez, former Minister of Environment and Energy (2014-2018) and retired professor at the University of Costa Rica, explains to EL PAÍS that in the late 1940s, the board governing at the time — the country had just come out of a civil war in 1948 — agreed to create ICE in 1949 and that it should take advantage of the abundant water sources to generate energy. "That made a big difference for the country. Hydroelectric plants started to be built and electricity was brought to all corners," says Gutiérrez.

Then, Costa Rica began to gradually diversify its energy production. "They experimented with the great geothermal potential and later, due to the issue of greenhouse gases, ICE proposed developing wind energy," points out the former minister.

Over the years, the population increase generated greater demand, which led ICE to open up to the incorporation of private plants through concessions to cooperative companies. Since 2000, hundreds of projects related to energy production and distribution have been carried out, with wind energy projects standing out. This has been key for the country to reach its high levels of clean production.

A well-known success story is Coopesantos, a cooperative that manages a wind farm in the south of San José province. General Manager Mario Solís explains that the company was born at a time when the country was in the midst of a "development process," concentrated in urban areas, so its goal was to bring this advancement to rural areas as well.