Uruguayan community uses 120kW solar-powered container

How does Uruguay get its electricity?

To this day, Uruguay continues to rely heavily on its dams, including the imposing Salto Grande on the Río Uruguay, whose power is shared with Argentina, and several on the Río Negro. For decades, electricity from those dams and from generators running on gas and oil imported largely from Argentina and Brazil met Uruguayans’ energy needs.

Why is Uruguay a'relative energy sovereignty'?

Once reliant on exorbitantly priced fossil fuel imports for nearly half of its energy needs, Uruguay has gone from suffering frequent blackouts and power cuts to relative energy sovereignty based almost entirely on electricity generated from a stable mix of wind, solar, hydroelectric, and bioenergy sources.

Does Uruguay have a power grid?

The map of Uruguay’s electrical grid today is starkly different from that of 2008, when the majority of power was generated at a few hydroelectric dams north of Montevideo and the rest at a handful of fossil fuel plants in the capital. It’s now possible for the entire grid to run several hours a day entirely on wind power.

Why did electricity prices drop in Uruguay?

Uruguay’s energy grid became powered almost exclusively by domestic renewable sources, and consumer prices, adjusted for inflation, fell. “Electricity bill prices dropped substantially,” said Alda Novell, a resident of Montevideo, by telephone. Today, Uruguay has more than 700 wind turbines distributed throughout its territory.