Uruguay is studying a major expansion of wind energy capacity over the next two decades to support green hydrogen production, the country’s government has said in its draft green hydrogen roadmap.
“Uruguay must join the green hydrogen wave because it has comparative advantages to do so,” said Omar Paganini, Uruguay’s Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, at the launch of the strategy.During the first stage of development, the government plans to concentrate on developing domestic demand and building the first export facilities, which would require 2-4GW of additional renewable capacity, especially wind and solar.
After 2030, the country would concentrate on expanding exports which would require up to 20GW of generation capacity.
Montevideo pioneered wind energy in South America, installing 1.5 GW of turbines equivalent to 30% of installed generating capacity. However, investment has slowed due to limited domestic demand.But the government said that Uruguay still had potential to develop up to 30GW in areas with high-quality wind plus more than 200GW of offshore wind.
“The quality, abundance and complementarity of wind and solar resources and would allow this process to continue in order to achieve competitive costs in industrial-scale hydrogen production,” the report said.
