COVER STORY Bringing A Wealth of Energy to the Rich Coast By Ginger Juhl, Juhl Communications Costa Rica, which literally translated means “rich coast”, is indeed rich in many important ways. It’s a highly enlightened, educated, culturally diverse and environmentally conscious country. Perhaps the most commonly uttered phrase in Costa Rica, pura vida, is what this country is all about – pure life – and the people of Costa Rica do more than pay lip service to this all-pervasive view of their world. Theirs is both a pure and rich way of living. Costa Rica has been a democracy since 1889 and abandoned its military forces in 1949, thus diverting substantial resources to investment in health and education. This investment in public education has paid off handsomely, as Costa Rica’s population of 4.4 million people enjoys a literacy rate of 96%. The country has consistently been among the top Latin American countries in the Human Development Index (IDI) and is rated fifth in the world – and first among the Americas – in the 2012 Yale University Environmental Performance Index. Moreover, in 2007, the Costa Rican government announced plans for Costa Rica to become the first carbon-neutral country by 2021. The net result? The New Economics Foundation (NEF) ranks Costa Rica as the #1 happiest country in the world, based on its “Happy Planet Index”, a leading global measure of sustainable well-being. For the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) and its customers, an essential component of achieving a high quality of life and meeting the country’s demanding environmental sustainability goals is the consistent and reliable delivery of competitively priced electricity. ICE is the largest utility in Costa Rica, with over 38% of the distribution market, 100% of transmission and 80% of generation nationwide. With a corporate focus on its customers and on leveraging the best and most innovative products and services available, with fewer resources and in the shortest time possible, ICE has embarked on many projects aimed at continually boosting power quality and reliability. One such project is an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) program sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as part of funding granted to strengthen the country’s electricity sector, help improve the quality and reliability of energy supplied throughout its distribution system and increase efficiency in consumption. The project marks the country’s first AMI undertaking and is currently being conducted in partnership with Elster Solutions, the North American electricity business unit of Elster, a multinational company that provides electricity, gas and water meters and related communications, network and software solutions to customers in more than 130 countries. Elster Solutions is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. A Partnership of Leaders This is not the first time ICE and Elster have joined forces to deliver reliable energy across Costa Rica. In fact, Elster has been the number one provider of electro-mechanical meters to ICE for many years. It’s not surprising then that upon conception of this AMI project, Elster was represented by its local distributor, ELMEC S.A., in the RFP 20 METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE - 4 | 2013