The solar park was financed by a US$10 million grant from the Japanese government.
Image: Fotopedia.
The President of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla has officially inaugurated a 1MW
solar park in Miravalles which is said to be
the country’s largest PV plant to date and
the largest project of its kind in Central
America.
Built on the slopes of Miravalles Volcano, the Miravalles solar park was originally
proposed by the Costa Rican Electricity Institution
(ICE) and a letter of intent was signed in
August by GeSolar, a Chinese manufacturer of
solar products, and Greenersys, a supplier
of renewable energy products based in Costa
Rica, to develop the PV plant.
The solar
park is equipped with 4,300 PV modules which
will help generate an estimated annual output
of 1.2GWh which will be fed into the grid.
"This
project is very important because it marks
the entry of Costa Rica to the production of
large-scale electricity based on solar energy,
and also mark the way to bring electricity
to thousands of families across the country
in the future," the Environment Minister René Castro, who presided over the inauguration of
the plant along with the President of Costa
Rica, the Japanese Ambassador to Costa Rica
and ICE CEO.
The project
was financed by the Japanese Ministry of Environment,
Energy and Telecommunications (MINAET), which
provided a US$10 million grant under the Japanese
government’s Project for Introduction of Clean
Energy by System Solar Electricity Generation
for the Government of the Republic of Costa
Rica programme.
The grant
will also provide enough funds to build a second
PV plant adjacent to ICE’s building in La Sabana.
The plant will use 130 PV modules and will
have a capacity of 3kW. Electricity generated
from the facility will be used to power ICE’s
central building.
