| Abstract |
During the last five years, when the Costa Rica country update report was presented at Antalia Turkey, Costa Rica´s geothermal frame remains mainly the same. In other words, the geothermal exploitation is still based upon the five units installed at Miravalles, currently the only Costa Rica productive geothermal field. Miravalles, continues to have a high energy production rate. During this five year period, after the Antalia congress, the five units installed at Miravalles reached a 165.5 Mw, equivalent to 8% of the total electrical capacity of Costa Rica republic and produces about the 13% of the total energy produced by the Costa Rica electrical system. During the quinquenniun covered by this report, the endogen steam used at Miravalles has mainly comes from a neutral reservoir, although about 24 Mw are available from the Miravalles acid reservoir, located in the northeast sector of the field, and is used as a complementary source of steam. From the acid reservoir a total of four acid wells were added to the main stream production system. At Pailas geothermal field a first 41 Mw binary plant is under construction. This plant will be on line in the second half of 2011. Also at the Rincon de la Vieja volcano, in a second area called Borinquen, a first plant feasibility studies are being carried out. The main generation source of the country is the hydro system that produces about the 80% the electricity. Others no contaminating sources as wing and biomass provided during the year 2008 2% of the total electricity produced in Costa Rica. The direct use of the geothermal energy as swimming pools has been a modest development. Additional direct use is related with a vegetables dehydration plant that will be installed at Miravalles by Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) and Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganaderia. |