Uruguay produces between 90% and 98% of its electricity from renewable sources — a transformation the country achieved in roughly 15 years, starting from a position of near-total dependence on fossil fuel imports. The shift began not with a grand climate vision, but with a crisis.
At a glance
- Renewable electricity: Uruguay now generates between 90% and 98% of its power from wind, hydro, and solar — one of the highest shares of any country in the world.
- Wind energy jobs: The transition created roughly 50,000 new jobs in a country of just 3.4 million people, directly addressing concerns about economic disruption.
- Energy transition timeline: About 50 wind farms were installed across the country over approximately a decade, transforming what had been a fossil-fuel-dependent grid into one of the world’s cleanest.
A crisis becomes a turning point
In 2008 C.E., crude oil hit a record $145 per barrel. For Uruguay — a country that imports its oil — the timing was brutal. Household energy bills were rising fast, demand had grown 8.4% the previous year, and the government was buying emergency power from neighboring states at steep prices.
President Tabaré Vázquez turned to an unlikely figure for help: Ramón Méndez Galain, a nuclear physicist who had spent 14 years working abroad. Most advisors at the time were pushing for a nuclear power plant. Galain disagreed. He published a paper arguing that Uruguay should go all in on wind power — and shortly after, received a phone call asking him to become the country’s energy secretary.
“Imagine my surprise,” Galain later recalled. “This was crazy. But I did something even more crazy: I accepted.”
Winning over a skeptical public
The technical challenge was real, but Galain argues the harder task was changing the story people told about renewable energy. In 2008 C.E., common objections were familiar: renewables were too expensive, too unreliable, and would cost jobs.
Galain’s response was deliberate. He avoided leading with climate arguments and instead made an economic case. “I told people this was the best option even if they don’t believe climate change exists,” he said. “It’s the cheapest and not dependent on crazy fluctuations in oil prices.”
The government also committed to a just transition — retraining workers and ensuring no community was simply left behind. That commitment helped convert skeptics at all levels, from cabinet members to individual farm owners. Santiago Revello, a beef farmer in central Uruguay’s grasslands, was debating selling his farm in 2009 C.E. when he learned that his land could host wind turbines without affecting his cattle. Today, his farm is home to 22 turbines and a new income stream.
How the grid actually works
Uruguay’s geography helped. The country has strong, consistent winds and significant hydropower capacity — a combination that addresses one of renewable energy’s core weaknesses: intermittency. When wind drops, hydro fills the gap. When hydro runs in surplus, Uruguay sells electricity to Brazil.
Logistics presented a different kind of challenge. Uruguay’s rural roads are narrow, and wind turbine components are not. Getting equipment to construction sites required rolling roadblocks and carefully coordinated convoys. Gonzalo Casaravilla, who led the state energy company UTE from 2010 to 2020 C.E., recalls early resistance from his own technical teams — resistance that dissolved once the system proved itself.
Political stability also mattered. Unlike several neighboring countries, Uruguay offered a consistent, long-term policy environment that made foreign investors willing to commit. High import tariffs gave the government a lever to incentivize that investment further.
What the world can learn — and where questions remain
The obvious question is whether Uruguay’s path is replicable. Xavier Costantini, a McKinsey partner based in Montevideo, is cautiously optimistic. Uruguay, he notes, was “blessed by nature” — but similar conditions exist elsewhere. Scotland, for instance, has substantial hydropower potential. “Full decarbonisation is expensive, but you could get to a high level of decarbonisation,” Costantini says, adding that a country like the U.K. could have a highly decarbonized grid “at a very cost-competitive rate” by the mid-2030s C.E.
One unresolved tension: electricity bills in Uruguay have not fallen as much as some citizens expected, given that wind and solar are often described as “free.” Costantini points out that this misses the cost of initial infrastructure investment and ongoing maintenance — costs that are real, even if modest. The question of how to communicate this honestly, without undermining public support for the transition, remains a challenge for governments worldwide.
Uruguay is now in what Galain calls the second stage of its transition — electrifying public transport, incentivizing taxi drivers to switch to electric vehicles, and building the infrastructure to extend decarbonization beyond the grid. How that plays out may offer the next chapter in a story that the world has good reason to follow closely.
For a country of 3.4 million people, wedged between Argentina and Brazil and easily overlooked on the global stage, Uruguay has quietly become one of the most instructive energy experiments on Earth.
Read more
For more on this story, see: The Guardian
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- U.K. cancer death rates down to their lowest level on record
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Uruguay
About this article
- 🤖 This article is AI-generated, based on a framework created by Peter Schulte.
- 🌍 It aims to be inspirational but clear-eyed, accurate, and evidence-based, and grounded in care for the Earth, peace and belonging for all, and human evolution.
- 💬 Leave your notes and suggestions in the comments below — I will do my best to review and implement where appropriate.
- ✉️ One verified piece of good news, one insight from Antihero Project, every weekday morning. Subscribe free.
