Overview
The Cote small-scale hydropower plant is located in Costa Rica, in the province of Guanacaste and Alajuela and within the Arenal Conservation Area. The project has generated renewable energy that has been supplied to Costa Rica’s national electric grid – National Interconnected System (NIS). The project took advantage of the infrastructure that was already in place to divert water from the Cote Lake and it also utilized the existing water intake structure. The project supplied electricity to the NIS through its own transmission line that connects to the closest distribution line. The state-owned energy distributor Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz (CNFL) was the project’s sponsor. The project has contributed to sustainable development in many ways including: assisting the NIS to keep thermal plants shut and use them only as stand-by power generation, employing local labor in construction and operation, facilitating electricity access by serving demand that otherwise would suffer blackouts in the zone, serving as a small demonstrative project for clean renewable electricity generation in the country, contributing to Costa Rica’s fiscal accounts through the payment of taxes, and helping the country improve the hydrocarbons trade balance through reduction of oil imports that would be used for electricity generation.
Benefits
- Assisting the NIS to keep thermal plants shut and use them only as stand-by power generation
- Employing local labor in construction and operation
- Facilitating electricity access by serving demand that otherwise would suffer blackouts in the zone
- Serving as a small demonstrative project for clean renewable electricity generation in the country
- Contributing to Costa Rica’s fiscal accounts through the payment of taxes
- Helping the country improve the hydrocarbons trade balance through reduction of oil imports that would be used for electricity generation