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Appologies if this has already been asked & answered - a quick skim didn't show anything related to the "why?"
This is great news. It makes me wonder if their homes or other buildings skew towards vernacular design and/or passive solar design.
No, we don't have any special design for our homes. It's just that we have lots of energy for our small country, all from our hydro plants and our volcanos, we have so much energy that we sell it to 6 more countries in the central America region.
Vernacular design is just very localized design using local materials and suited to local weather. It's like adobe homes in the American Southwest and igloos in Alaska.
What is a typical home like there? How are they heated and cooled?
We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal). Costa Rica is blessed with plenty of the second type and uses it. Because we lump it all into "renewables," it sounds like it should be easy for everyone to follow their example, and that's…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like an opportunity for a massive battery system similar to the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia that Tesla pulled out all the stops for.
"Massive" Honsdale battery is capable of supplying much less than 1% of grid power in Australia. An installation of that size could help at the margins to prevent some brownout events, but don't overestimate the capacity of batteries compared to grid demand. It looks like Costa Rica has about 3600 MW of generating capacity. The Hornsdale battery is good for 150 MW.
Note that Hornsdale is also tiny compared to batteries currently being developed in Australia. The new battery in the Hunter will be 1200MW - which is enough to nullify the need for all gas-generated peaking capacity in that state
This the classic, usual kind of misleading news about renewable energy. Keep dreaming, hoping and advocating for renewables, but it's just not the solution. Nuclear is the only viable solution.
Is there an easy answer as to why Costa Rica is doing so well? They seem to be a bit of an exception in Central/South America. EDIT: From Wikipedia "It is known for its long-standing and stable democracy, and for its highly educated workforce, most of whom speak English. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agri…
Tiny country that has very little industry?
Pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development, and ecotourism have become the prime industries in Costa Rica's economy. High levels of education among its residents make the country an attractive investing location. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Trade_and_foreign_i...
We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal). Costa Rica is blessed with plenty of the second type and uses it. Because we lump it all into "renewables," it sounds like it should be easy for everyone to follow their example, and that's…
Only because it's early. The first grid-scale battery only went online 3 years ago.
In that example (South Australia) you only have to look at this chart[0] to see what it done to grid renewable demand and where the trend is heading.
There are multiple GW more of additional battery coming online over the next few years
[0] https://opennem.org.au/stripes/sa1/?metric=renewablesProport...
We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal). Costa Rica is blessed with plenty of the second type and uses it. Because we lump it all into "renewables," it sounds like it should be easy for everyone to follow their example, and that's…
The wording you are looking for is "dispatchable" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/CR?wind=false&solar=fals... (Electricitymap.org: Costa Rica) 2.36GW of total hydro generating capacity, 595MW of wind, and 1.64GW of geothermal, as well as interconnectors with Panama and Nicaragua to export excess renewables generation (or import when in nation generation isn't meeting consumption). With CR's favorable geography for hydro, it'd make a lot of sense for central amer…
What do you mean Tasmania’s hydro is used as a big battery? My understanding is it barely provides enough electricity for the state, and the interconnect is used to consume power from Victoria 99% of the time
Is there an easy answer as to why Costa Rica is doing so well? They seem to be a bit of an exception in Central/South America. EDIT: From Wikipedia "It is known for its long-standing and stable democracy, and for its highly educated workforce, most of whom speak English. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agri…
Costa Rican resident here. Costa Rica invest a lot in renewables. Tourism is a huge income. There are lots of places to visit. Hundreds of volcanoes, 7 active. The climate, it can rain and then sunny...several times a day. Costa Rica exports technology. Intel, MS,Google...Several start ups...lots of outsourcing jobs.