In July of this year, a report published by a French organization, Organization Ren21, revealed that Costa Rica has been recognized as the country where its energy matrix uses the largest share of renewable resources. Ren21 is a non-profit global network which is based in France, and specializes in policies aimed at renewable energy usage. They are an integral part of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
The data collected during 2014-2015 placed Costa Rica as one of the 131 countries achieving a shift in the use of renewable resources. This data was collected from local institutions that manage the generation of electricity in the country. And Costa Rica ranked the highest of the countries being monitored with 99% of its energy coming from renewable resources. The other countries that participate in renewable resources are Uruguay (94.4%), Austria (70%), Djibouti (65%,) and Sweden (63.3%). Sadly other developed countries like Spain (37.8%), Italy (33.4%), Germany (28.2%), France (18.3%), and Japan (12.2%) didn’t rank nearly as well. And the European Union as a bloc only recorded 27.5% in usage of renewable electricity production in 2014.
Even with such an impression ranking, Costa Rica, like Cape Verde, Dominican Republic, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Vanuatu, and Djibouti have all set goals to reach 100% in electricity generation from renewable resources in the future. According to the National Center for Energy Control (CENCE), Costa Rica has not actually used oil to generate electricity since 17th of June of this year.
To learn more about energy efficiency, be sure to visit the upcoming Energy Efficiency Conference to be held on September 30th at the Hotel Real Continental.
