Costa Rica beating its own records on renewable energy usage

The small Central American nation of Costa Rica has broken its own record yet again. In 2018, the country went 300 days using only renewable energy.

As of October 3, electricity from water, wind, geothermal energy, biomass and the sun has accounted for 98.15 per cent of the total produced in the country.

It is another feather in the cap for Costa Rica. Back in 2015, it managed to generate 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy sources for 299 days, and in 2016, it ran for 271 days on everything but fossil fuels.

And for 300 days in 2017 too, Costa Rica’s electricity was produced entirely using renewable energy.

According to the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity, the country has also created 201 consecutive days of renewable energy starting May 1 of 2018.

Costa Rica generates most of its electricity, around 99 per cent, with a variety of methods including hydropower (78 per cent), wind (10 per cent), geothermal energy (10 per cent), biomass (1 per cent) and solar (1 per cent).

However, there is a drawback. Almost 70 per cent of the country’s energy consumption still comes from fossil fuels, as gas is still widely used for cooking and fuel used for vehicles.

The newly-elected President of Costa Rica, 38-year-old Carlos Alvarado Quesada, has vowed to fully decarbonize the country’s economy and make Costa Rica the first carbon-neutral nation in the world, by no later than 2020.

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