ICE negotiates purchase of backup energy from MER companies

The following is a machine translation of an ICE release

The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) is negotiating with companies in the Regional Electricity Market (MER) the purchase of backup energy (generated with up to 200 megawatts of power), as a preventive measure to face the dry season next year.

Agents such as Gatún and AES (both from Panama) are part of the Institution's list of negotiations. The energy would be delivered in periods when the combination of national renewable resources must be regulated – mainly due to a decrease in rainfall – to guarantee the sustainability of the National Electric System (SEN).

After last summer, ICE continued with its resource optimization plan. This has allowed it to recover the levels of its reservoirs, mainly Arenal, which is now over 536 meters above sea level, and to carry out maintenance to ensure the operation of the equipment at the plants, such as in Reventazón.

“The negotiation is part of the planning to take advantage of the opportunities of the MER, while our basins recover to face the summer of 2025. We are moving forward in implementing the announcements made months ago, to guarantee the supply of national demand with clean energy, diversifying sources to be more resilient to climate change,” explained Marco Acuña, president of Grupo ICE.

In addition to trading energy, MER agreements allow for participation in auctions for transmission rights, an essential operation for selling or buying electricity in the region.

“We plan to finalize the agreements during 2024, so that the country has the necessary energy at the right time. This year we awarded 86 solar megawatts and 80 wind megawatts; we continue to promote distributed generation and will contract the available private generation,” said Verny Rojas, Electricity Manager at ICE.

Despite the extremely dry conditions that the central region of the continent has faced in recent months, Costa Rica maintains its high profile of renewable generation with the production of five clean sources of the national matrix: water, geothermal, wind, biomass and sun.