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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/CR?wind=false&solar=fals... (Electricitymap.org: Costa Rica)

2.36GW of total hydro generating capacity, 595MW of wind, and 1.64GW of geothermal, as well as interconnectors with Panama and Nicaragua to export excess renewables generation (or import when in nation generation isn't meeting consumption).

With CR's favorable geography for hydro, it'd make a lot of sense for central america to more tightly integrate their electrical grid, similar to how Tasmania's hydro capacity in Australia is used as a "big battery" for the rest of the NEM (eastern AUS electrical grid). In the above link I provide, the interconnectors are shown with real time usage data below generator capacity for each country/grid.

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> import when in nation generation isn't meeting consumption

When people say "it's fiction" I think this is a lot of what they mean. If a location is net 100% renewable, say, someone who is 100% solar, so they generate lots of excess in the daytime, but, consume lots on cloudy days and at night and we assume that imported power is very dirty, they might be a net 100% renewable but ultimately they are consuming polluting power. I suspect, with tons of Hydro/Geothermal (which are very on-demand/stable sources) the gross amount of power that costa rica imports is actually quite low and they are actually doing very well (especially compared to others who are "net 100% renewable"), but, I would love to see that figure (gross import %) represented when people talk about being net 100% renewable. Net 100% renewable with 1% gross imports is far more impressive and sustainable than net 100% renewable with 25% gross imports.

As with everything, there is nuance. Good points. I think we're simply arguing over the amount of pessimism/optimism as the global energy transformation continues.

Not even arguing (I'm not the person who said "it's false" without providing any information). I say it because I want to reward projects which can hit a crazy 1% gross target vs projects which are primarily for show and aren't useful without dirty grid power backing them a huge % of the time.

No, that isn't what I meant.

Costa Rica does not run 100% on renewables. It's literally and simply a media half-baked feel good fiction.

They still have gas cars, diesel busses, diesel generators, &c.

They still emit tons and tons of carbon. They currently emit 1.64 metric tons per person, more than twice what their neighbors in Nicaragua do.

They're carbon neutral in the greasy, lawyer, "well technically we meant this" way that you should never, ever take seriously.

A Costa Rican has about 1/7 the emissions of an American.

I know it's lovely to pretend, but let's come back to the real world here. These things are easy to look up

> I would love to see that figure (gross import %)

Then look it up

There's proposals to build a giant pumped storage hydro scheme in Tassie [1], which would literally make it a "big battery".

[1] https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/battery-of-the-nation

I poorly communicated the idea in that part of my comment to be honest, my apologies. It's currently a battery in the sense that it exports during the wet season and imports from VIC during the dry season. As mentioned, it'd be a "proper battery" where it can "charge" from renewables (or, dreadfully, fossil) with the link you and I provided in this subthread.

Hydro resources are an important component of future grids, as long duration battery storage is pricey (although short duration storage such as Tesla's install at the Hornsdale Power Reserve is critical for ancillary services like frequency response and synthetic inertia, to keep frequency and voltage within tolerances when a thermal generator trips or renewables drop offline).

What do you mean Tasmania’s hydro is used as a big battery?

My understanding is it barely provides enough electricity for the state, and the interconnect is used to consume power from Victoria 99% of the time

https://opennem.org.au/energy/tas1/?range=all&interval=1M

Hover over exports on the right hand side. There are imports from VIC occasionally, but Tas Hydro's plan is to build pumped hydro infra [1], as well as an additional interconnector to South Australia [2] which has robust renewables resources.

[1] https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/battery-of-the-nation/...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinus_Link

Exports are listed as -10%. Im super confused though.

Depending on the season Tasmania exports a lot of electricity to the mainland.

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