January will start with an increase in electricity rates in Costa Rica, due among other causes to the water drought and the effects of the El Niño phenomenon, the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep) announced.
In spite of renewable sources
During the last four years, electricity generation in Costa Rica covers 98.53 percent of the total from five renewable sources: water, geothermal, wind, biomass and sun.
From 2014 to 2018, 74.77 percent of electricity generation in the Central American nation comes from water; 11.92 for geothermal energy; 11.08 percent from wind power and only 1.47 percent from bunker and diesel.
The entity explained, through a press release, that the adjustment reflects greater generation of thermal energy by the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE). According to Aresep, three tariff studies were carried out simultaneously: the ordinary adjustment requested by ICE to update its cost structure: generation, transmission, distribution and public lighting.
Extraordinary distribution adjustment
They also took into account the extraordinary distribution adjustment to recognize all companies for the cost they incur when purchasing energy from ICE. According to the different energy distribution companies, the increase will go from 385 colones ($0.70) to three thousandcolones ($5.90).
The entity argues that the impact of the El Niño phenomenon is presented as the main cause of these increases in 2024, so during 2023 the ICE had to resort to thermal generation to guarantee timely attention to national demand, which also registered an increase associated with the economic reactivation process.
It is expected that, at the end of 2023, the thermal generation produced by using fuels (bunker and diesel) will be around nine percent of the country’s total, data that confirms the adverse effect of El Niño. In the last eight years, thermal generation represented around one percent, the entity described.
