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Mutiny on the Internet
Panama - Costa Rica power interconnection progresses
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International power sharing

photo courtesy of the Presidencia

The long-term plan is an electric grid that encompasses the Americas. Of course, power is lost by resistance of the lines when it is transmitted too far, but it is possible for an energy-deficient California to get power from Mexico, which makes up its resulting deficit by importing electricity from Central America, which in turn replaces the power it sent north from Panama. The problems are mainly political and economic rather than technical --- will there be any future for public sector electric companies, and if everything gets privatized, who will get what and in which directions will the bribes flow?

Panama has ETESA, a public company that owns the power lines and buys electricity from mainly private electric generators and sells to private distributors (Union Fenosa, Elektra Noroeste, etc.)

Here we have a small part of the picture, from Sixaola in the Costa Rican province of Limon, right across the river from Panama. The state-owned Instituto Costarricense de Electrificacion and ETESA have teamed up to create this two-megawatt connection between the two countries' power systems with the intention of supplying power to Bocas del Toro province. In that area the electric company is the Bocas Fruit Company, a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands, and they charges the highest electric rates in a country that has some of the world's highest rates in general. The high electricity prices in Bocas have the the subject of a certain amount of political turmoio, but the company pleads a shortage of power to sell and the rule of supply and demand.

But starting sometime in December, the shortage will be alleviated by this connection. It's not clear whether this will actually affect the electric rates in Bocas.