Wind Power: More Supply than Needed

In Costa Rica, 19 projects were selected as "eligible" by the state run power company, but the same institution has ruled out opening new competitions to purchase more wind-generated power.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

EDITORIAL

Investment in alternative energy is risky, because it depends on uncontrollable external factors such as unpredictable weather variations, which have particular effects on hydraulics, solar and wind power. The price of oil is the biggest determining factor, and its fall in the last two years has led to the failure of a lot of renewable energy projects. In some cases investors had to pay the price, and in other cases it was consumers. As an example of the latter, we have reviewed what happened in Uruguay, where "In the last two years the country which is the Latin American champion in wind energy lost $63 million a year from buying wind MWh at $70 and having to resell it at $7."

It is in the light of these facts that we should analyze what is happening in Costa Rica with wind power supplies.

According to the Costa Rican Association of Electricity Producers (ACOP) twenty wind projects are waiting for the Instituto Nacional de Electricidad (ICE) to open new competitions, but the state has rule out doing so, not only because it has already reached the limit of 15% of private generation established by law, but also because it does not see it as "... ideal to depend so much on wind," explained Luis Pacheco, manager of the ICE to Nacion.com.

Pacheco added that "...'The amount of electricity that can be produced with this source in a period is very unpredictable, and [if] it is less than expected, someone else has to provide it.'"

Meanwhile, Mario Alvarado, executive director of Acope, explained that the projects awaiting approval from the ICE, "..would be set up in Guanacaste, in the areas of Tilaran, Canas, Mogote, Guayabo and Bagaces ."

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