A spike in demand, an unusually parched dry season, and inefficiencies in the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) resulted in a nationwide blackout and emergency rationing that shook the nation in April.
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The unplanned nationwide blackout and subsequent scheduled outages were the first in five years, prompting administration officials to talk about an energy crisis.
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The outages also sparked widespread debate about whether the government should open the doors for increased private participation in the electricity sector, a government-run monopoly.
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ICE, which oversees production and distribution of 80% of the country’s electricity, announced Costa Rica would need an additional 200 megawatts of capacity, or about a 10% increase, to meet electricity demand by 2008.
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The Arias administration’s solution was to expedite construction of new thermal plants.
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ICE, one of the government’s biggest bureaucracies, began its own energyrationing plan in July.
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That same month, ICE head Pedro Pablo Quirós promised there wouldn’t be any rationing in 2008.
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He said ICE would rely on more thermal energy and rented generators to get hydroelectric-dependent Costa Rica through the dry season.
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