Cost of Living In Costa Rica. Electricity prices.

Before we start looking at the actual electricity rates, I want to ask you a question…

When you last went car shopping, or bought a home, did you buy the cheapest car you could find? Did you jump in and buy the cheapest home you saw advertised?

Of course you didn’t!

You probably bought what you felt was the best value car you could find and, although there may have been some emotion involved, you hopefully made a similarly wise decision when it came to buying your home…

Because the cost of a product or service is not just about the amount of dollars involved, is it?

If you buy a light, low priced car with cheap tires which is unsafe for the road, you might have paid a small price but you could also be risking your life, and the lives of your loved ones every time you get in that car…

If that’s the case, it could turn out to be a very, very expensive car!

I believe the same applies to electricity and even though the electricity in Costa Rica is certainly more expensive than the average in the USA – approaching the rates in Hawaii which are the highest in the country – here’s why I believe Costa Rica electricity is worth every penny.

Almost all power companies in the USA rely on a combination of fuel sources: coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, other renewables, or petroleum to produce electricity and, there are significant problems associated with many of them:

• “Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear plants that meet government regulations.”
• “Natural gas power plants are significant air pollution sources, releasing hazardous air pollutants, global warming pollution and fine particulate matter. Natural gas releases the greenhouse gas methane, which, ton for ton, traps 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide.”
• As for the dangers associated with nuclear energy, I’m no nuclear scientist but we only have to glance at a few book titles (below) to remind us about recent catastrophic nuclear disasters to know what’s possible.
• And with “…some 436 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 30 countries…” it’s highly likely that we’ll see other accidents in the future.

How many nuclear power plants does Costa Rica have?

None!

How many coal-fired or natural gas power plants does Costa Rica have?

None!

“Almost all states have some level of electricity generation from renewable fuels other than hydroelectric, including wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. While the use of other renewables is not at 50% in any state yet, over 10% of the electricity in Maine, Iowa, Minnesota and California is generated from this fuel source category.”

And “Costa Rica’s new president wants 100 percent of energy produced for consumption to be from renewable energy sources.”

So this stunning little country full off stunning scenery, sunshine and smiles – Costa Rica – is the most likely to become “… the first country in the world to be able to produce the energy it consumes from 100 percent renewable resources.”

Electricity Prices In Costa Rica

As you will see from the Grupo ICE website, the residential rate charged for electricity in Costa Rica homes and apartments varies depending on useage, the more electricity you use, the higher the rate you will pay so …

I would suggest that for those of you hoping to have a high quality, but affordable lifestyle in Costa Rica, this means that you should avoid using your A/C all hours of the day.

• For the first 200 kilowatthours = ¢65/kWh (12.69 US cents)
• 201 a 300KWh = ¢119/kWh (23.24 US cents)
• Each additional kilowatthour above 300 = ¢164 (32 US cents)

The rate of exchange changes daily, but you can always see the current exchange rate on the Banco Central de Costa Rica website and today we use ¢512:US$1 for these calculations.

For a home that consumes an average of 250 kilowatts per hour per month (kW/h), this increase means the average family would pay ¢18,831 or US$36.77. Having said that, most North American families will probably use a lot more appliances and therefore more electricity than the “average” Tico family.

As an example, you can see from my most recent monthly electricity bill (above) for ¢46,890 (US$91.58) that I pay more but, for the life of me I can’t seem to get the formula above to work out right…

All the apartments in my building in San Jose are equipped with central A/C but it’s rarely required. The temperatures in the Central Valley area for me personally are so comfortable that I only turn it on for an hour or two per week only to make sure it’s working OK…




Electricity Prices In The USA

According to the Average Retail Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers, electricity prices in the USA range from a low of 7.2 US cents per kilowatthour in Nebraska up to a high of 26.71 cents per kilowatthour in Hawaii:

• California residential 15.69
• Connecticut residential 19.13
• Florida 9.39
• Hawaii 26.71
• New Jersey residential 15.85
• New York residential 17.11
• Texas residential 11.59
• The average residential rate in the US for 2010 is 10.54 per kilowatthour

Electricity Prices In Europe




After seeing that, if you think Costa Rica electricity is expensive, then this might put things into perspective for you:

1. Denmark 42.89 cents per kilowatthour (2007)
2. Italy 37.23 cents per kilowatthour (2009)
3. Netherlands cents per kilowatthour 34.70 (2009)
4. Germany 30.66 cents per kilowatthour (2009)
5. Phillipines 28.80 cents per kilowatthour (2010)
6. Sweden 27.334 cents per kilowatthour (2009)
7. Ireland 23.89 cents per kilowatthour (2007)
8. Spain 19.50 cents per kilowatthour (2009)
9. UK 18.59 cents per kilowatthour (2009)

In the USA: “We use about one-sixth of our electricity to cool ourselves. That’s more than the total electricity consumption of India, a country whose population exceeds 1 billion. To get the electricity, we use nuclear energy and we burn oil and coal.”

Costa Rica electricity prices are lower than many European countries but they are certainly higher than most US prices but this is public information so when I hear complaints from people about the cost of using their air conditioning, my thought is: “Why didn’t you consider that when you were first thinking about of buying the place?”

To me it’s baffling why anybody needs air conditioning especially in the Central Valley where there is normally a pleasant breeze, the highest temperature is around 82 degrees and then cools off to the low 60’s in the evening.

Having lived in ten different countries, I really can’t imagine a more perfect climate than what we have in Costa Rica.

Yes! It can be hot and humid living at the beach but, if Mother Nature has designed your body so that you feel it’s impossible for you to live in those temperatures without air conditioning then perhaps you should reconsider your decision to live there?

The wonderful thing about Costa Rica is that you can choose your weather!

You can choose to build or buy a home at higher elevations, where the views are better and where you can enjoy a cool breeze without air conditioning.

Costa Rica Electricity – Mainly hydroelectric

While there is environmental damage associated with building enormous, billion dollar hydroelectric dams in Costa Rica like the one at Proyecto Hidroeléctrico El Diquís, or the $500,000,000 Proyecto Hidroeléctrico Pirris, the environmental damage, the financial costs and the potential damage to your family’s health that could be involved in using any other nuclear, coal-fired or natural gas power plants to produce the same amount of electricity in Costa Rica would be significantly higher…

…And please don’t get me started on the amount of water we use …

• At the end of the day, when I turn on my lights, I am not worried about a Chernobyl type catastrophe happening in Costa Rica, it can’t happen here because we don’t have any nuclear power plants.
• I’m not worried about the toxic waste generated by the typical nuclear reactor, which is 20 to 30 tons of high-level nuclear waste annually which nobody can dispose of safely. It remains dangerously radioactive until it naturally decays and, the rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is called its half-life, the half-life of Plutonium-239, one particularly lethal component of nuclear waste, is 24,000 years.
• Costa Rica is not addicted to oil where, thanks to the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico “the latest evaluation of air monitoring data shows a serious threat to human health from airborne chemicals emitted by the ongoing deepwater gusher.”
• I’m also not worrying about pollution from coal-fired or natural gas power plants, it can’t happen in Costa Rica because we don’t have any.

So am I happy that we have so much renewable, comparatively clean energy from water and our volcanoes? And…

Am I willing to pay a substantial premium for renewable, non-dangerous, non-toxic, non-polluting electrical energy in Costa Rica?

Si, Señor! Absolutamente!

(1) Source: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/04/49-mw-of-wind-goes-live-in-costa-rica

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Written by Scott Oliver, author of 1. Costa Rica Real Estate Scams & How To Avoid Them, 2. How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa, 3. Costa Rica’s Guide To Making Money Offshore and the Director/Producer of the Costa Rica Living & Retirement – Secrets To Happiness DVDs.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.