page_title: Renewable energy in Costa Rica
section_title: Solar power
hierarchical_section_title: Renewable energy in Costa Rica / Sources / Solar power
caption_attribution_description: English: Solar Radiation Map: Global Horizontal Irradiation Map of Costa Rica, SolarGIS. English version.
context_page_description: Renewable energy in Costa Rica supplied about 98.1% of the electrical energy output for the entire nation in 2016. Fossil fuel energy consumption in Costa Rica was 49.48 as of 2014, with demand for oil increasing in recent years. In 2014, 99% of its electrical energy was derived from renewable energy sources, about 80% of which from hydroelectric power. For the first 75 days of 2015, 100% of its electrical energy was derived from renewable energy sources and in mid 2016 that feat was accomplished for 110 consecutive days despite suboptimal weather conditions. As a country, Costa Rica has a geographic advantage over others in that its high concentration per capita of rivers, dams, and volcanoes allows for a high renewable energy output. In addition, Costa Rica is the fourth highest nation in terms of rainfall per capita: it receives an average of 2,926 mm of precipitation per year. As a smaller nation with a population of only 5 million and no major industry, the need for strong energy infrastructure is less than for larger countries of higher population density.
context_section_description: Like wind power, solar power is another newer energy source in the country. The first solar power projects in the country were established in 1978 by just a few researchers from public universities at the Solar Power Laboratory at the National University. Though still on a smaller scale and mostly privately owned, plans for larger more commercial projects are beginning to break through.
  Despite the country has a privileged position near the equator that, combined with the sunny weather during the year, made a solar power potential of more than 144 million MWh/year, solar energy in Costa Rica is in its early stages, and is even falling shorter than the rest of its Central American neighbors. According with an Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) study in 2006, the national photovoltaic potential of electric generation for the projected population for 2015 is 222,000 MWh/year.
  In 2012, Costa Rica inaugurated the Miravalles Solar Park on the hillside of the Miravalles Volcano. At that time, it was the first of its kind in Costa Rica and the largest solar project in Central America. It was built with the help of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The project's totaling was $11.5 million ($10 million from JICA and $1.5 million from ICE). This plant of 1MW only represents 0.03% of all the capacity installed in the country of 2872 MW.
  In 2013, China and Costa Rica signed agreements of US$30 million for financing the installation of 50 thousand solar panels, including a power plant of 10 MW. In addition, in 2014, ICE announced a pilot program for solar energy use in housing that aimed to reach 600,000 clients, but in 2015, the institution ended the plan arguing that the maximum capacity was already reached, rising criticism from the solar energy distributed generation sector. According with ACESOLAR, more than 1000 jobs were at risk for such a decision.
  Differences of bureaucracy procedures and technical aspects related to the official national norm “Planeación, Operación y Acceso al Sistema Eléctrico Nacional” (POASEN, in Spanish) on introducing distributed generation have been occurring and causing delays in its implementation through the last years among the main actors of the solar sector: the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), the Autoridad Reguladora de Servicios Públicos (ARESEP, in Spanish, a public entity that fixes prices and standards on public services), the electricity agencies of the country and the private companies that supply solar panels. One of the main discrepancies between MINAE and ARESEP was the legal nature of net metering, being solved by the Attorney General of the Republic (Procuraduría General de la República, in Spanish) in June 2015. The final resolution stated that distributed generation for self-consumption is not considered a public service in Costa Rica. In October 2015, the government finally published the required regulatory framework that entered into operation in April 2016.
  By 2015, countries like Guatemala or Honduras have 85 MW and 388 MW of solar power capacity installed respectively, and Nicaragua and Panama are also ahead of Costa Rica with 1.4 MW and 42.7 MW, according with a report released in July 2016 by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL, in Spanish). ICE's position is that the maximum capacity that could be allowed in the National Electric System is 60 MW, distributed in plants of no more than 5 MW across the territory. However, the institution is not reporting to develop more solar projects in the next 10 years in their expansion plan.
caption: Solar potential of Costa Rica
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