By Wendy Anders

Costa Rica’s Cote Hydroelectric Plant near Arenal Volcano is the only plant in Costa Rica approved for carbon emission reduction sales through the World Bank’s Prototype Carbon Fund.

Run by the National Power and Light Company (CNFL), the 6.8 MW Cote Hydroelectric Plant (CHP) offsets an estimated 9,500 tons of carbon per year with its production of renewable energy for the country’s electric grid.

The CNFL’s carbon credit program with the World Bank ends next year, and to date has generated  a total of US$364,232 for the company. The most recent payment was for nearly $70,000, said the CNFL press office.

This is the first energy production project for which the CNFL has received carbon offset payments, said the company. “In this way, the CNFL is contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gases that produce global warming, and is generating additional income.”

The CHP was built by a group of private firms, grouped in the Consorcio HidroCote between 2001 and 2002 and entered operation in March 2003, according to a World Bank datasheet on the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.

Consorcio HidroCote is a consortium of the Colombian firm, Gomez Cajiao y Asociados S.A. (design), and the Brazilian firms Toshiba Do Brasil S.A. (electrical-mechanical equipment) and Termotécnica Coindustrial S.A. (construction).

The plant takes advantage of existing infrastructure installed to divert water from Cote Lake to the Costa Rican Electricity Institute’s (ICE) Arenal Reservoir. In 1982, ICE constructed a dam on the Cote River (the natural outlet from the Cote lake) converting the lake into a regulation reservoir. The existing water intake structure was incorporated in the Cote plant, with some modifications including a new dam, an additional tunnel, and other infrastructure, said the World Bank.