Original post at Sciencealert.com by Myles Gough
Well done Costa Rica, well done.
The Cental American country has achieved a major clean energy milestone, meeting 100 percent of its power demand with renewable energy for 75 straight days.
“The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” the state-owned power supplier Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said in a press release.
The ICE says the country’s zero-emission milestone was enabled thanks to heavy rainfalls at four hydroelectric power facilities in the first quarter of 2015. These downpours have meant that, for the months of January, February and so far March, there has been no need to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity.
Instead, Costa Rica has been powered primarily by hydro power – both pumped storage and run-of-the-river plants – and a mixture of geothermal, wind, biomass and solar energy.
