Power outages are the result of events external to Costa Rica

This ICE statement was translated from Spanish by an automated system

The recent power outages in the National Electric System (SEN) are the result of events external to our country. Their origin is associated with the activation of protections in the network shared by the six countries that make up the Regional Electric Market (MER) and the Regional Electric System (SER).

During August and September, the country has been affected by 14 events, which occurred mostly in the generation and transmission systems of Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Nicaragua. The outages are perceived by residential, commercial and industrial customers, for periods ranging from 5 to 15 minutes.

“The technical teams are working to minimize the impact on the activities of all our clients. We have already asked the Regional Operating Entity (EOR), operator of the MER, to review the protocols to reduce the collective impact,” explained Julio Matamoros, head of the Electric System Operation and Control Division (DOCSE) of ICE.

“It is very important to highlight that the SEN operates correctly and that we have not had supply problems, either in our generation or transmission systems. We meet demand with the most economical combination of available resources, based on our renewable matrix,” he added.

The SER has protections to avoid major consequences when these events occur, such as the Automatic Low Frequency Load Disconnection Scheme (EDACBF), which isolates specific circuits for short periods of time. It distributes the disconnection among all countries.

Since 1998, our country has been part of the MER. The interconnection provides technical, economic and tariff benefits through energy purchases and sales, and promotes quality and continuity of supply, both for Costa Rica and for the other five member nations.