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One lake that is used to pump water up when demand is low and use the water for electricity generation when the demand is high is in Tennessee, check out this link… http://www.tva.gov/sites/raccoonmt.htm
First off, the way I see it, this problem did not start two weeks ago. It was years in the making. Overbuilding on the Pacific coast has contributed greatly to this. Contrary to what some say, developers are not improving the infrastructure of Costa Rica. Jaco has many projects under construction but he roads are going to hell. The paved road outside of town has been turned into a dirt road and the developers don’t even have to improve access to the buildings they are constructing. What a shame! In the US builders have to provide roads to their new developments and repair what they have damaged. Electricity and water better be there too.
The government and the Ticos have to realize they are living with limited resources and they might be squandering their birthright for what seems to be a quick buck. But many of them are not even benefiting from the construction that is underway, they are only side players in all this. In years to come the increased flow of money from European and North American retirees may be able to raise their standard of living, but It has to happen before the potable water runs out and the power has to remain on 24/7. You can’t have the growth without the infrastructure in place, or the timetable set in stone for its upgrade. If these conditions are not met, who will want to live by the Pacific or anywhere else for that matter. The tourism industry is already assuming cancellations will happen if this issue is not taken care of immediately.
The solutions are not simple and I am sure I don’t have the answers. The suggestions however could be to have the North American power grid integrated with Central and possibly South America. If you are running out, or short of water for hydro electricity generating, then you have no choice but to go with oil or gas fired, or dare I say it, coal fired generating stations at least as a backup or as semi-permanent sources of power. Yes, most of the fuel will have to be imported and the cost of electricity will go up. Wind, solar and other very green technologies have not advanced yet to fulfill the demands of an entire country. When those can come online, you can shut down the dirty fuel systems. In years to come the Hydro generators will also improve and the upgrades to the existing systems will make it more efficient.
Water is another matter, and you just can’t generate water unless you want to desalinate the sea, which requires more energy. Conservation and water treatment is what may help in the short term. Long term answers are not that simple. The world’s water table has been getting lower for many years. China’s has been getting lower by many feet per year. I’m sure this is a problem all nations will have to face. No easy answers here either.
The present situations call for immediate solutions to keep businesses open, the water flowing, and the growth of Costa Rica secure. Whether it is tourism or the computer chip industry, Costa Rica has a big problem that all the bureaucratic handwringing will not solve. Action is what is needed and the voice of the people should be heard.
These are national questions which will have to be answered in days and weeks, not years.Art, please do let us know what you learned. We’re fairly far from the main road and our voltage drop is noticeable. When we were building our main house a year ago, I looked into locally available photovoltaic systems because I thought we might just become independent of ICE altogether. No such luck! The completely adequate system I found would have cost half what we have in the entire house. A less capable back-up system would still have run nearly $60,000.
The worst part of it is that the batteries (you can install more or fewer) are the cheap part. The controller is very expensive and it’s a fixed cost regardless of the size of the system. The panels are pretty pricey, too.
I too would be interested to know (or how to find out) if there are any governmental incentives (reduced duties and/or taxes) on the development, production or purchase of alternative energy products.
Electric vehicles (cars, scooters, bicycles), photovoltaic and wind systems would be examples of things that could be further developed & utilized if there wasn’t such a “penalty” for importing them.
And if importing the finished goods is unacceptable, then provide incentives & allow the importation of the necessary component parts & materials so that these items could be developed & produced in Costa Rica by Ticos.
REPOSTED HERE BY SCOTT:
Posted Apr 29,2007 4:39 PM Renewable Energy
Hi,My name is Jason Borner and I have been living in Costa Rica for 16 years and have my own alternative energy company here. I am writing in response to some of the questions that were posted here and hopefully I can help with some quick answers for now and will write more tomorrow….
First the project regarding pumping the water up the hill to a reservoir during off peak hours and then re-using it to produce energy during peak times is feasible when the economic costs justify it.
These type of projects take into account the kWh price differences between peak and non peak hours. The per kWh price difference could be anywhere from 10%-50%, which then makes it feasible to pump water back up the hill, even though there is a loss in efficiency by doing this.
It is kind of like a perpetual motion machine with the economics of energy driving it. In some instances this is a viable strategy but in most markets it is not.
Most alternative energy equipment in Costa Rica pays 14% import tax which is essentially sales tax, plus the 1% “selectivo de consumo”.
The sales tax component can be recovered if you own a business that collects sales tax through it’s operations (retail sales, food, hotel etc). I say most because some components are not covered by this. The biggest example is with batteries.
If I import a complete solar “kit” with everything from inverters, to charge controllers, mounts, cables, and batteries, the system is classified in customs as an “AC generator of less than 30kW capacity” (there are different ranges).
Since the primary function (and this is how customs classifies items) of the system is to generate AC electricity then all components that are needed to make this happen only pay the 14% tax.
If I were to bring components in separately (as in the case when I have replacement batteries), then the panels, inverters, charge controllers, and other electrical equipment pay 14%, the batteries however jump to 62%!!! This is what makes systems expensive, and why it is better to buy in kit form.
Now on the solar thermal side of things (hot water, hot air), taxes are the 14%, plus 9%. This makes no sense to me and I have been trying to convince MINAE of their position and it may change, but for the moment we are stuck paying the extra 9%.
Part of the energy crisis in the country could be alleviated if the government and mostly ICE would allow renewable energy systems to be connected to the grid. Currently the ICE is doing a multi year study to figure out how to implement this even though the technology has been proven around the world and is very easy to implement.
Only here would it take them so long to see how this could be a benefit. There is another catch though and that is that by law only 5% of the national energy grid can be produced by private companies or individuals.
Although this seems like a very static number, this 5% share is growing annually with the overall expansion of the grid. Mostly this 5% share comes from smaller hydro producers in the 500kW or less range, and excess energy produced by palm oil and sugar cane factories burning biomass.
What is lacking is for Joe consumer to be able to add solar to his building, connect an all in one inverter and hook it up to the grid. This is what we call grid tie, and is very easy to implement and maintain as there are no batteries (although a small bank could be added for backup). Imagine if all the new condos being built would include some of this energy in their design, it would relieve some stress on the grid.
The other issue that was raised was payback. Typically payback in Costa Rica on a solar electricity system where the house is near the grid is unrealistic in purely economic terms. The reason for this is simple; there is no funding.
In California, Germany, Japan and other places, half of the system cost is paid either by state incentives or from the regular energy service provider. In some cases the excess energy is bought back at market price, and in Germany the energy is purchased back at 2-4 times the market price.
This obviously makes an impact on payback. However when other concerns are factored in, (CO2, environment, energy security) and given an economic weight then the situation can change, but this is a personal quantification and at this stage in human environmental appreciation not an economic one.
Payback for solar thermal systems, water pumping systems and remote homes in Costa Rica can be as little 3 years, depending on the variabilities of each project, and wind and small scale hydro can payback on a much quicker time frame than solar.
In pure market terms the price of solar panels was lower about a a year to two years ago, but the global demand for silicone of the proper grade and purity has caused prices to rise again.
The lowest price that one could buy panels in the US today is about $3.5 per watt $350 for a 100 watt panel). This however would probably be a one off, or limited stock item and the normal price is more like $4.5 to $5 per watt. Then shipping and taxes must be added to get the product here which means that a panel in Costa Rica sells for about $6 to $8 per watt.
For an off grid home system with batteries and including installation the price can be from $13 to $18 per watt. As a baseline to compare systems the industry uses the solar array capacity to describe a system, therefore if a typical vacation home would need a 2 kW solar array the system would cost between $26000 and $36000.
This would also include some type of a back up generator as the batteries in the systems require periodic maintenance that is too expensive for solar to provide alone.
OK….bear with me I have one last question to answer!
Looking at this crises from a global view and finding the root causes leads us to the CO2 debate and a theory of what we can do to stabilise the current emissions (other than radically reduce the human population).
The theory revolves around the 7 wedges of stabilization which are strategies for reducing CO2 emissions and go hand in hand with providing for the future energy needs of Costa Rica and other countries.
If everyone would attempt to implement some or all of these strategies in their daily lives the world may be able to reduce emissions and increase economic growth – the holy grail. If not grab your surf board because the tide is rising on a beach near you!
I won’t explain this all here but please go to:
http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/stabwedge.htmPopular Science also had a great article on this a few months back.
I hope I have been able to provide some answers and look forward to continuing this discussion.
Cheers,
Jason
A NOTE FROM SCOTT OLIVER – FOUNDER OF WELOVECOSTARICA.COM
You can see the article entitled ‘Solar Energy in Costa Rica – An Interview with Jason Borner’ at
Jason’s website and contact information can be found at http://www.poderco.com
Jason and all,
Here is a link to one site I’ve been looking at for complete solar systems. I will be contacting them for a complete system breakdown on the packages. I’ll post what I find.
http://www.altersystems.com/catalog/index.php
Check them out and see what you think. Perhaps if enough people get together they could make a multi-buy and get even better deals. They ship free in the states which could be LA and form there a container to Costa Rica.
ArtThere is a US company called FAFCO (known for solar pool heaters). that now has a DIY all polymer solar heater. It works on any conventional hot water heater and contributes as much as 50% of a typical households hot water requirements through a solar heat exchanger. If your handy, it can be installed in a weekend. Because it’s made of polymer it’s not big and bulky, and coud probably be shipped or brought to CR fairly easily. The cost is about $1800. If you use this on a US home you get a substantial tax credit. You can find info on their web site. I don’t work for them.
Peg, that substantial tax credit in my county in New york, USA, comes out to a whopping $2000.00 tax surcharge, yes, surcharge. It seems they worked out a nice deal with the power company years ago. And it is still true because my neighbor called the town hall recently and inquired. So much for wanting to save the environment, or help the homeowner/citizen.
There is a federal tax credit from the EPACT bill of 2005 that is good through December of 2007. New York has had tax incentives since 1998. I don’t see how the county can charge you tax on something the state is giving you an income tax credit on. If that’s the case, it should be challenged in court.
They do indeed charge this tax, Peg. And it is per annum. I don’t think anyone has challenged it yet. I believe it is ridiculous to even have considered a law like this in the first place. But I guess it was a payback for the power company providing the infrastructure here. I’m sure it will get eliminated, once enough people want to try solar or wind power to supplement their energy needs.
Saw this company advertising in the Costa Rica Chamber of Construction (I am a member) magazine which looks very reasonable.
Their advertisement boasts of a solar powered water heater for 300 litres which costs only US$1,900
Their site is at http://www.solraycentroamerica.com
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comSwissol, who is based in Belen, offers a similar system for around $1,100, last time I checked. It has a single panel, a 53 gallon (about 200 liters) storage tank on the roof (not my first choice) and requires no pump. It circulates water through the panel by convection.
Swissol installed the two panel/80 gallon tank system on our main house. Their service was excellent.
You can reach Stephan Frey at swissol@racsa.co.cr.
We had solar water heaters in Lansing, Michigan and on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I can’t say enough good about it. Don’t understand why every house doesn’t have one.
Jason’s post is great info and his link makes my previous point that the energy issue has not one solution – but many! It is an accumulation of solutions that is the one solution (the link even mentioned nuclear).
I have passive solar in my mountain home in CA and it works wonderfully for heating. Passive solar for water heating should be used frequently in CR.
Also I find it disturbing how $ is worth more than clean resources and the availability of them. It get down to self definition. Are we to continue to define ourselves by our bank account, or will our deeds, our actions be the criteria for self definition?
Also a good little web mag for green lifestyle is lime.com. We all should live in smaller houses, use less energy and resources and generate more energy by hooking up to the grid, as Jason suggested. That along with the many solutions detailed in his link could work. But the quickest solution is to live like a Tico, humble, small house, public transport and less ambition.
Of course us American that know better (tongue in cheek) can’t wait to make CR wall to wall condos so we can all live big and UNHAPPY! Less is truly more. unless you are addicted to TV, then its hopeless as your wants will always exceed your needs.
Check out the lime.com article on the movement towards smaller homes! This mag is well worth subscribing to and its free.
Diego states that it’s disturbing that: “$ is worth more than clean resources and the availability of them.” And “Are we to continue to define ourselves by our bank account, or will our deeds, our actions be the criteria for self definition?”
Until we realize – in the very near future – that we REALLY don’t have enough water to drink or grow food and 75% of our newborns are suffering from some respiratory disease because of the pollution in the air.
Human nature is such that the game will be all over before the majority of people understand what’s going on. Of course the people will then be very angry at the ‘organizers’ and ‘referees’ of that game and why they allowed it continue …
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.com
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