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It has nearly 3.5 million residents, produces nearly 550,000 tons of beef each year, and has a stellar football reputation, having hosted two World Cups in its history and now boasting many world-class stars. Uruguay, the home country of writer Mario Benedetti and footballer Luis Suarez, has achieved what many countries have promised for decades: 98% of its electricity grid is powered by green energy.

Luis Prats, 62, Uruguayan journalist and writer for Montevideo newspaper El Pais. He remembers that during his childhood, power outages were common in Uruguay due to major problems with energy production.

“At that time, more than 50 years ago, electricity came from the generation of two small dams and a thermal power plant,” Platz explained in Spanish over the phone. “If there's a drought in the Rio Negro basin (where these dams are located), electricity use is curtailed and sometimes limited.”

Just 17 years ago, one-third of Uruguay's energy production used fossil fuels, according to the World Resources Institute.

Today, only 2% of the electricity consumed in Uruguay comes from fossil energy sources. The country's thermal power plants rarely need to be started unless natural resources are insufficient.

Half of Uruguay's electricity comes from the country's dams, and 10 percent from agricultural and industrial waste and sunlight. However, wind power accounts for 38% and is the protagonist of the power grid revolution. But how does the country achieve this goal? Who are the architects of this energy transition?

energy revolution

In 2008, Uruguay faced many problems faced by developing countries. The economy is growing, but there isn't enough electricity to power all the growth. Energy rationing had to be implemented and electricity bills continued to rise.

“It's difficult for us to cope,” Ramon Méndez Galán, a professor at the University of the Republic of Montevideo in Uruguay, told NPR. He was one of the architects of the country's energy revolution. “Getting electricity is difficult. At one point we started losing power, but crises also represent opportunities.

In 2008, President Tabare Vázquez appointed Mendez Galán as National Energy Director. While the blackouts pose an immediate threat to the economy, the country's continued dependence on oil undermines its autonomy. A major question guiding Mendez Galán’s work is: What strategies can lead the country to long-term energy independence? The physicist has laid out a detailed plan to make Uruguay almost entirely dependent on renewable energy.

Mendez Galan's plan is based on two simple facts about his country. First, although there is no domestic supply of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, there is a large amount of wind energy. Second, the wind blows across a country that consists mostly of uninhabited farmland. His vision for Uruguay’s energy future is to cover these empty lands with hundreds of wind turbines.

Agronomist and livestock engineer Pablo Capurro expressed to DW his concerns at the time about the impact wind turbines could have on his farm life. Capullo and other farmers in the area sought advice from a team of engineers and traveled to Brazil to visit the country's wind farms. After the inspection, they were convinced that the implementation of the wind turbine would not affect the production system.

Kaprow's dairy cows appear to be unaffected by the windmills: “I'm very pleased with the introduction of the wind park on the livestock farm.”

In 2010, Uruguay reached a multi-party agreement to make the transition to indigenous and renewable energy a national policy, ensuring its implementation and continuity, Walter Verri, Uruguayan Undersecretary of Industry, Energy and Mines, explained in Spanish on the phone : “This policy includes a long-term perspective that, in addition to the classic techno-economic analysis of energy issues, also incorporates social, ethical and cultural dimensions.”

State-owned energy company UTE pays annual rent to the owners of the land on which the wind farms operate.

Don Quixote, Ivy and Windmill

In the eyes of Don Quixote, the ingenious gentleman of La Mancha, the windmill is like a arrogant giant, reflecting his infinite imagination and idealistic perspective on the world. This mythical interpretation of the windmill resonates with contemporary perceptions of wind towers in Uruguay, which see them as symbols of clean and renewable energy.

Today, Mendez Galán leads the NGO Ivy, which means “the land without evil” in Guaraní. Guarani is the native language of the region's residents and one of Paraguay's two official languages.

Just as Don Quixote sees windmills as challenges that must be overcome to fulfill his ranger duties, the installation and maintenance of wind farms in Uruguay also face significant obstacles. From technical challenges to financial and regulatory hurdles, the transition to clean energy requires a concerted effort to overcome them and move toward a more sustainable future.

How to pay for all these turbines?

A variation of an approach used by some Brazilian power companies was conceived by Méndez Galain, winner of the 2023 Carnot Prize, which recognizes outstanding contributions to energy policy. The companies operate through public-private partnerships, where the company is responsible for energy production while the private entity manages distribution and customer service. Mendez Galán’s innovation was to reverse this dynamic: Private companies would be responsible for installing and maintaining the wind turbines that feed Uruguay’s grid, while public companies would continue to distribute energy to consumers.

This approach has the inherent advantage of shifting the expensive initial costs of wind turbine construction to private companies. The state-owned company agreed to acquire all the energy produced by the turbines at a pre-set price for 20 years.

“Investors need to make sure they're going to get a return on their investment,” Mendez-Garland explained in an interview with NPR. “And to do that, they need a specific time frame.”

There is political will in this approach: all political parties in Uruguay agree to the transition.

In 2009, Uruguay began an auction in which wind power companies from around the world competed to provide the country with the cheapest renewable energy. In 2011, a special auction was held to acquire an additional 150 MW of wind energy, which would account for approximately 5% of the country's total generating capacity. After receiving offers from more than 20 international companies, the professor and his team decided to significantly accelerate the country's energy transition.

In the end, they accepted far more offers than originally planned, signing contracts that expanded Uruguay's power generation capacity by more than 40 percent instead of 5 percent. Uruguay's energy grid is powered almost entirely by domestic renewable energy, and consumer prices adjusted for inflation have fallen.

“Electricity bills have dropped significantly,” Montevideo resident Alda Norville said by phone. Today, Uruguay has more than 700 wind turbines scattered across the country.

“At first glance, this change is visible in many areas of the country: you walk along the road and you see modern windmills in rural areas,” Platz said. “Beginning in 2010, with the diversification of energy and renewable energy sources, power outages became very rare. It was a relief to the state coffers that they did not have to spend money on fossil fuels to generate electricity.

For Walter Verri, Undersecretary of Industry, Energy and Mines, the development of renewable energy in Uruguay benefits from the cooperation of various actors, including the entire political sector and public and private companies.

Verri added that this energy transition creates new careers, employment opportunities and training pathways for Uruguay.

Over the past decade, countries around the world have announced ambitious goals to reduce the emissions that drive climate change. Few are expected to achieve this goal. Uruguay is a good example showing that a green transition is still possible.

This article was translated by Climate Cardinal.