This is a best prospect industry sector for this country. Includes a market overview and trade data.
Last Published: 10/28/2019

Overview
Unit: Millions of US$ Dollars

 2017201820192020
(estimated)
Total Market Size14.116.715.315.9
Total Local Production0.30.40.30.4
Total Exports0.20.70.40.5
Total Imports14171516
Imports from the U.S.3.94.133.5
Exchange Rate: 1 USD576610602615
Data in millions of US$ Dollars.

Total Market Size = (Total Local Production + Total Imports) – (Total Exports)
Data Sources:
Total Local Production: Estimated. Industry sources
Total Exports: Costa Rican Customs Directorate
Total Imports: Costa Rican Customs Directorate
Imports from U.S.: Costa Rican Customs Directorate

Local production of energy equipment is limited to small products needed for solar panels and water installation, such as cables, metal tubing, some valves and metal water tanks.  Chinese products currently account for 49% of the total market.  The US is second with 20% of the market followed by several smaller competitors, mainly from Asia. These include Hong Kong (China) (8%), Singapore (3%), Taiwan (3%). There are also imports of solar products from Central America, but these tend to be re-exports from other Asian countries.

U.S.  exports decreased from $4.1 million to $3 million, but the general total solar market decreased as well due to a general slowdown in Costa Rican economy.

Exports from Costa Rica are also of imported products from other countries.  Most companies selling solar systems are assembled Asian solar panels with some U.S. made components.
Statistics are based on the following harmonized codes: 8419.19, 8541.40, 8541.90, 8502.40, 8535.21, and 8507.20.

Industry sources indicate that total imports in this sector are expected to have a minor increase in 2020 over the previous year to about US$16 million.  The Costa Rican government approved in 2016 a new regulation which allows individuals and companies to produce solar energy (up to 15% of the users per district) and sell up to 49% of their excess production back to the grid. The consensus within the solar energy products industry is that the sector will grow at an annual rate of 5-10 percent from 2020-2021

Sub-Sector Best Prospects
The following are the best prospects sub-sectors for the U.S. solar energy products:
  • Components of Solar Water Heaters:
8419.19 - Storage water heaters, nonelectric
  • Components of Solar Panels:

8502.40 - Electric rotary converters
8507.20 - Lead-acid storage batteries other than of a kind used for starting piston
engines or as the primary source of power for electric vehicles
8535.21 - Automatic circuit breakers:
8541.40 - Photosensitive semiconductor devices; Light emitting diodes
8541.90 - Parts of diodes, Transistors or photosensitive semiconductor devices

As mentioned before, there is no significant local production of solar energy products in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican energy generation matrix for 2018 is composed of 74,4% Hydro, 12,7% Geothermal, 10,3% Wind, 1,88% Thermal, 0.7% Biomass and 0.01% Solar.

Most of these products do not pay import taxes, but taxes can also be exonerated by the end-user though the Costa Rican Ministry of Finance. High quality, reliability, durability, favorable prices, good maintenance service, and timely delivery are the main factors for increasing U.S. sales in the solar energy products sector.


Opportunities

Based on the projections made by the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), the participation of solar energy in Costa Rica for 2030 will reach 1.3%, the hydroelectric market will increase to 80%, followed by geothermic energy that will account for a total of 10.6% of the total energy production. According to the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE) and the Costa Rican National Power and Light Company (CNFL), both government entities, the target market for solar energy in Costa Rica are households or companies that consume between 200kw/h and 3,000kw/h.

ICE and CNFL have been installing photovoltaic systems. ICE successfully ended a program to install energy photovoltaic systems for a total of 10MW back in 2015.  By the end of 2013 it had 2,559 systems installed in homes, 649 systems installed for community activities, and 132 systems installed in conservation areas. A significant quantity of the solar energy panels that have been installed by ICE are located in rural areas where electric energy networks are hard to install.

Last year, Solar Energy International opened a training facility for Solar Energy products installation in Costa Rica: https://www.solarenergy.org/sei-opens-first-international-solar-training-center-costa-rica-enroll-today/

Web Resources

CS Costa Rica Commercial Specialist, Roy Fernandez
Roy.Fernandez@trade.gov

Commercial Service Costa Rica office:
http://www.export.gov/costarica

Costa Rican Association of Solar Energy -ACESOLAR
http://www.acesolar.org

Costa Rican Association of Energy Producers -ACOPE
http://www.acope.com

Public Services’ Regulating Authority - ARESEP
https://aresep.go.cr/

Costa Rican Customs Directorate, Ministry of Finance
https://www.hacienda.go.cr

Expo Solar 2018
https://www.facebook.com/events/406328503161722/

Prepared by our U.S. Embassies abroad. With its network of 108 offices across the United States and in more than 75 countries, the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce utilizes its global presence and international marketing expertise to help U.S. companies sell their products and services worldwide. Locate the U.S. Commercial Service trade specialist in the U.S. nearest you by visiting http://export.gov/usoffices.