MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay faces critical energy situation because of insufficient rainfall

Uruguay faces a serious energy situation in the coming months because of a record poor rainfall, revealed the National Energy Director Ramón Mendez. Most of Uruguay’s energy is hydroelectric, “which makes it cheaper, but also highly dependent on the climate”.

“The hydrological situation is critical, rainfall is at its lowest record since the historic drought of 1945”, said Mendez who added that Uruguay’s main four dams’ reservoirs can hardly manage their operational levels.

However Mr. Mendez said that no electricity restrictions for the private sector have been considered so far, “we are permanently assessing the situation, and if we have no rainfall in the coming fifteen days we have several alternatives”.

One of the country’s main dams Salto Grande, which when operating at full capacity can supply half the country’s energy needs, plus a similar volume for Argentina, “is receiving a flow of 500 cubic metres per second, when on normal times this is 8.000 cubic metres per second”.

This summer Uruguay suffered water shortages in some areas of the country and the government was forced to declare a national emergency for agriculture during several months, plus facilitating forage imports and freezing payment of local and national taxes.

“February rains were interesting but insufficient, since the land was to dry and there was not much left for the reservoirs”, said Mendez.

In 2008 Uruguay was forced to supplement hydroelectric energy with fossil fuel power generation, demanding an investment of over 500 million US dollars.

In related news landlocked Paraguay declared the state of emergency in several provinces of the country because of the persistent drought. Most areas are close to the borders of Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil where an extensive cattle breeding is practiced.