The Guanacaste province is the leading region in Costa Rica in terms of clean energy projects. That leadership is being sustained thanks to both public utility projects and private business initiatives. In Santa Cruz, the elegant Tamarindo Diria Hotel recently announced its completion of a water heating project entirely powered by solar energy panels.

According to an article by Fiorela Valle of Guanacaste online news site Primero en Noticias, the Tamarindo Diria Hotel will deliver hot water to 240 rooms and its laundry and linen operations through a system of 164 water tanks that hold a little more than 25 liters heated by solar energy.

The hotel invested $190,000 in order to fund this project. The electrical consumption savings will be of about 529,600 kilowatt hours per year. The utility lifespan of the panel and heaters ranges between 20 and 30 years. There are additional savings relation to propane gas, which the hotel was consuming at the rate of almost 95 liters per year. Based on this gas expenditure, the hotel will recover its investment in about three years.

President Laura Chinchilla was present at the inauguration of this project, which is of national interest insofar as the Costa Rica National Carbon Neutral initiative. Through efforts to reduce the carbon footprint left by business operations in Guanacaste and across the country, Costa Rica will continue to get closer to her goal of becoming a carbon-neutral nation by the year 2021.

The owner of the Tamarindo Diria Hotel, Wolfgang Gollas, told Primero en Noticias that he estimates that this solar energy project will save about 23,000 trees per year. This Playa Tamarindo hotel is not yet carbon-neutral, but it is working towards that goal through more eco-friendly practices and through support of ongoing reforestation efforts in Costa Rica.