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I live part-time in Costa Rica. Brownouts occur 1-4x every day. It’s usually just a few seconds and not all that bad. The worst part is when you have to restart

I live part-time in Costa Rica. Brownouts occur 1-4x every day. It’s usually just a few seconds and not all that bad. The worst part is when you have to restart the dishwasher.

belval 5y ago
I've read about expats praising Costa Rica for its low costs and beautiful properties that foreigners can buy. How was your experience there?
- leesalminen 5y ago
  It took about 2 months of us being there to pull the trigger and buy a house. Costs for most things are low, except for cars. Cars are insanely expensive due to the ~50% import tax. Electricity is also fairly expensive per KWH. The people are very nice and generally welcoming to foreigners. You never run out of things to do, either. There’s always another adventure to explore. Fiber internet is accessible in most areas I’ve been to. Pretty reliable to boot. I’ve never had an issue Zooming etc. It really is extremely beautiful. Overall, we have very few complaints about the country.
  - megabless123 5y ago
    how about the weather and climate?
  - Cd00d 5y ago
    That import tax on cars is interesting. Several years ago I sold a used Toyota Echo that I'd had for ~12 years, but had maintained nicely. The buyer's whole effort was buying used Echos and shipping them to Costa Rica. I thought that was pretty niche, but I guess a very reliable and quite cheap car finding a home in a place where prices high makes a lot of sense. Thanks for helping make the pieces fit.
- asdff 5y ago
  I don't think foreigners can get a mortgage though, you might have to buy property outright.
  - belval 5y ago
    If median salary is $9k/year I would assume their housing market to be a lot more affordable than Toronto's.
    - asdff 5y ago
      Actually if thats really the median salary then Costa Rica is far less affordable than Toronto. Look at these prices on this website (albeit one of the first search hits that comes up) (1) I'm seeing 3-4 bedroom homes for at least $500k USD in some cases. If you can afford to pay that outright with no financing as a foreigner in Costa Rica, you can certainly afford a down payment in Toronto's housing market today. 1. https://www.propertiesincostarica.com/homes.html https://www.propertiesincostarica.com/homes.html
JohnHaugeland 5y ago
four brownouts a day is an instant kill for industry despite that you're okay with it, most heavy users of power aren't the reason they're omitting this from the reporting is that the reporting just isn't true
- leesalminen 5y ago
  That’s fair. Every grocery store has a massive diesel generator sitting out back. Guess they don’t want their cold foods to spoil. As a counter point, nearly all brownouts occur after 6 PM. So maybe it affects heavy industry less?
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Depends entirely on the length of the brownouts and the type of industry, there are long-proven fallback and standby options that can smooth out temporary blips (or just clean dirty power in general) that allow 'industry' to work just about anywhere in the world. The bigger issue in Costa Rica is that they aren't actively courting heavy industry, so their power is very expensive for commercial users -- nearly $0.20/kWh compared to half that rate in a place like Mexico or Colombia, or more like $0.05/kWh in Texas.
  - walshemj 5y ago
    Standby = spinning up diesel generators in a lot of cases.
- sergiomattei 5y ago
  Puerto Rico's 4 blackouts a day stares awkwardly from the distance. Guess the US isn't doing any better.
NortySpock 5y ago
Seems like an opportunity for a massive battery system similar to the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia that Tesla pulled out all the stops for.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  "Massive" Honsdale battery is capable of supplying much less than 1% of grid power in Australia. An installation of that size could help at the margins to prevent some brownout events, but don't overestimate the capacity of batteries compared to grid demand. It looks like Costa Rica has about 3600 MW of generating capacity. The Hornsdale battery is good for 150 MW.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    Would be good for those 5 second brownouts though
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Flywheels are a pretty good solution for ride-through of brownouts. Fairly compact and instantly available.
      - mavhc 5y ago
        Where are they deployed at scale?
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Hospitals, datacenters. Plenty of them to ensure that operation theater gear continues to work uninterrupted in case of brown out or the - short - interval during which generators start up if the power should fail. Teraloop, AFS and others.
        JohnHaugeland 5y ago
        Literally everywhere. They're standard issue. The Level3 building in San Diego had a two story iron flywheel that got loose and cut its way through the highway. They are by far the most common kind of energy storage on Earth. Even in your car, which has both. https://www.10news.com/news/11k-pound-flywheel-caused-poway-explosion https://www.10news.com/news/11k-pound-flywheel-caused-poway-...
lesterzone 5y ago
Resident here. No issues with brownouts. Costa Rica uses different sources of electricity with several producers hence different experiences by different people
wil421 5y ago
A lot of people in Costa Rica have generators on standby for blackouts and brown outs.
- newsclues 5y ago
  Battery backups as well?
- mnouquet 5y ago
  That's probably not accountable as "renewable"...
- asdff 5y ago
  I live in California and I have an APC on standby for when my power company cuts power too. They've already encouraged that I refrain from using my AC during the heatwave of course. People think we in the U.S. are far removed from the experiences of people in other countries, but we aren't really. That's just our biased perception. A lot of LA looks just like parts of central america.
idiotsecant 5y ago
It might not be bad for you but it's pretty rough on your AC motors like fridge compressor etc. Most of them are constant power machines - a voltage drop means a current rise means a hot winding means a failed motor.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I'd always wondered and never asked why turning off a fridge was bad for it. Thank you!

I live part-time in Costa Rica. Brownouts occur 1-4x every day. It’s usually just a few seconds and not all that bad. The worst part is when you have to restart the dishwasher.

belval 5y ago

I've read about expats praising Costa Rica for its low costs and beautiful properties that foreigners can buy. How was your experience there?

leesalminen 5y ago
It took about 2 months of us being there to pull the trigger and buy a house. Costs for most things are low, except for cars. Cars are insanely expensive due to the ~50% import tax. Electricity is also fairly expensive per KWH. The people are very nice and generally welcoming to foreigners. You never run out of things to do, either. There’s always another adventure to explore. Fiber internet is accessible in most areas I’ve been to. Pretty reliable to boot. I’ve never had an issue Zooming etc. It really is extremely beautiful. Overall, we have very few complaints about the country.
- megabless123 5y ago
  how about the weather and climate?
- Cd00d 5y ago
  That import tax on cars is interesting. Several years ago I sold a used Toyota Echo that I'd had for ~12 years, but had maintained nicely. The buyer's whole effort was buying used Echos and shipping them to Costa Rica. I thought that was pretty niche, but I guess a very reliable and quite cheap car finding a home in a place where prices high makes a lot of sense. Thanks for helping make the pieces fit.
asdff 5y ago
I don't think foreigners can get a mortgage though, you might have to buy property outright.
- belval 5y ago
  If median salary is $9k/year I would assume their housing market to be a lot more affordable than Toronto's.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Actually if thats really the median salary then Costa Rica is far less affordable than Toronto. Look at these prices on this website (albeit one of the first search hits that comes up) (1) I'm seeing 3-4 bedroom homes for at least $500k USD in some cases. If you can afford to pay that outright with no financing as a foreigner in Costa Rica, you can certainly afford a down payment in Toronto's housing market today. 1. https://www.propertiesincostarica.com/homes.html https://www.propertiesincostarica.com/homes.html

JohnHaugeland 5y ago

four brownouts a day is an instant kill for industry despite that you're okay with it, most heavy users of power aren't the reason they're omitting this from the reporting is that the reporting just isn't true

leesalminen 5y ago
That’s fair. Every grocery store has a massive diesel generator sitting out back. Guess they don’t want their cold foods to spoil. As a counter point, nearly all brownouts occur after 6 PM. So maybe it affects heavy industry less?
mikeyouse 5y ago
Depends entirely on the length of the brownouts and the type of industry, there are long-proven fallback and standby options that can smooth out temporary blips (or just clean dirty power in general) that allow 'industry' to work just about anywhere in the world. The bigger issue in Costa Rica is that they aren't actively courting heavy industry, so their power is very expensive for commercial users -- nearly $0.20/kWh compared to half that rate in a place like Mexico or Colombia, or more like $0.05/kWh in Texas.
- walshemj 5y ago
  Standby = spinning up diesel generators in a lot of cases.
sergiomattei 5y ago
Puerto Rico's 4 blackouts a day stares awkwardly from the distance. Guess the US isn't doing any better.

NortySpock 5y ago

Seems like an opportunity for a massive battery system similar to the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia that Tesla pulled out all the stops for.

jeffbee 5y ago
"Massive" Honsdale battery is capable of supplying much less than 1% of grid power in Australia. An installation of that size could help at the margins to prevent some brownout events, but don't overestimate the capacity of batteries compared to grid demand. It looks like Costa Rica has about 3600 MW of generating capacity. The Hornsdale battery is good for 150 MW.
- mavhc 5y ago
  Would be good for those 5 second brownouts though
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Flywheels are a pretty good solution for ride-through of brownouts. Fairly compact and instantly available.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      Where are they deployed at scale?
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Hospitals, datacenters. Plenty of them to ensure that operation theater gear continues to work uninterrupted in case of brown out or the - short - interval during which generators start up if the power should fail. Teraloop, AFS and others.
      - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
        Literally everywhere. They're standard issue. The Level3 building in San Diego had a two story iron flywheel that got loose and cut its way through the highway. They are by far the most common kind of energy storage on Earth. Even in your car, which has both. https://www.10news.com/news/11k-pound-flywheel-caused-poway-explosion https://www.10news.com/news/11k-pound-flywheel-caused-poway-...

lesterzone 5y ago

Resident here. No issues with brownouts. Costa Rica uses different sources of electricity with several producers hence different experiences by different people

wil421 5y ago

A lot of people in Costa Rica have generators on standby for blackouts and brown outs.

newsclues 5y ago
Battery backups as well?
mnouquet 5y ago
That's probably not accountable as "renewable"...
asdff 5y ago
I live in California and I have an APC on standby for when my power company cuts power too. They've already encouraged that I refrain from using my AC during the heatwave of course. People think we in the U.S. are far removed from the experiences of people in other countries, but we aren't really. That's just our biased perception. A lot of LA looks just like parts of central america.

idiotsecant 5y ago

It might not be bad for you but it's pretty rough on your AC motors like fridge compressor etc. Most of them are constant power machines - a voltage drop means a current rise means a hot winding means a failed motor.

arcticbull 5y ago
I'd always wondered and never asked why turning off a fridge was bad for it. Thank you!