Coffee tunes and improves the mood, predisposing us to work and heightening the senses. Coffee offers a lot, such as reading the “good news” from Cuesta de Moras and understanding how the laws that regulate us as a country are defined. And then, one is more inclined to take it strong because important issues continue to be postponed.
The bills presented for the opening of the energy market are not far from becoming entangled in complexities that leave the citizen captive, shifting a problem from the public to the private sector without solving the underlying issues. The complaints or oppositions regarding cogeneration seem laughable because it is not even the underlying problem.
It seems that we should pause and take this as an opportunity, as the starting shot for the indispensable and urgent energy transition, as recently outlined in the Decarbonization Plan presented by the government.
Existing regulatory barriers become hindrances that discourage, complicate, and make the implementation of new technologies that would allow citizens to have the clean and renewable energy that characterizes us at a better price unfeasible. Public institutions, as abstractions, must not forget that they were born to “benefit the citizens.” I am not saying they haven’t, but values and principles have been forgotten, and new technologies are here to stay, going beyond the interests of some groups.
We must focus on society obtaining cleaner and cheaper energy; as citizens, we should be able to participate in energy activities.
Self-consumption is a reality that has been demonized and discouraged, preventing us from benefiting more from its advantages, such as reducing the needs of the grid, achieving greater energy independence, and emitting fewer carbon emissions.
We cannot live in the past, and we cannot avoid the future. Costa Ricans must be pioneers in the region and be prepared for the energy challenges we will face in the absence of resources, seeking ways to provide clean and cheap energy for everyone.
Faced with the errors of the Energy Expansion Plan, the overcosts of projects, the impossibility of building Diquís, and the manipulated theses that point out any change in the current model as detrimental to the electrical system and the grid, it is necessary for many to raise their hands, inform, and ensure that the main interest is the most economical alternatives for the electrical supply of all, to avoid the high electricity prices projected for the future. There is no longer room here to continue doing things as always, to say that new models seek to benefit certain sectors and not strengthen the public. Let’s not cover our eyes; the current model requires changes. Energy reforms are necessary but under a new vision that allows for the provision of new services and stops wasting everyone’s money.