A press release from the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) specified that Costa Rica exported 224.64 gigawatts / hour to the Regional Electric Market in the first four months, the highest figure in the last six years and four times more than in 2020, when in the same period they totaled 58.64 gigawatts / hour.
The ICE reported that the income from these exports contribute to reducing the operating costs of the National Electric System (SEN) and exemplified that between October 2020 and March 2021 they accounted for 17.52 million dollars for the sale of electricity to the regional market.
That money was reinvested in the optimization of the SEN, with a direct rate benefit for all clients in the country. The executive president of ICE, Irene Cañas, affirmed that the installed capacity of the SEN, the improvements in the transmission links, the optimization of renewable resources and certain conditions associated with the Pandemic have allowed the country to reach the highest sales of the last six years.
No thermal backup needed
On the other hand, the ICE announced that in the first four months of this year, which is usually the driest, Costa Rica did not have to resort to the thermal backup of its plants to meet the demand.
This, derived from the climatic conditions, allowed the five renewable sources of the Costa Rican matrix – water, geothermal, wind, biomass and sun – to sustain the consumption of all clients connected to the SEN.
