The energies renewable were fundamental for the recomposition of the profitability of the National Administration of Electric Power Plants and Transmissions (UTE) and contributed to reduce by 50% the cost of electricity generation, according to the last survey of the Energy and Sustainable Development Observatory of the Catholic University of Uruguay (UCU).
Facing a second energy transition in the country that will seek to replace fossil fuels in other sectors of the economy, the importance of the expansion of renewable energy is taking on more and more prominence.
In this sense, during 2020, the Uruguayan Association of Private Electric Power Generators (Augpee)asked the UCU —as well as private companies— to prepare an updated report on the impact of investments in this sector and, particularly, the analysis of the Demand Supply Cost (CAD) of electrical energy in Uruguay for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022.
The results, which you accessed scope.com and which were presented during a conference at the UCU headquarters in Montevideo, and under the title “The impact of investments in renewable energy in Uruguay”, leave no doubt about the highly beneficial aspect of investing in the new energy matrix: the unit cost of producing electricity in the country. down 50% in real terms with the incorporation of renewable energies.
In the same sense, the study of the Observatory of Energy and Sustainable Development proposes a factual scenario with a Energy Matrix composed mostly of renewable sources, compared to a but-for scenario in which current generation of wind and solar energy It was replaced by thermal generation with fossil fuels. The objective was to calculate the total savings that renewable energies generated to the country during the study period.
In this way, with thermal generation the CAD for 2020 would have been 368 million dollars higher than the one actually registered that year, while the cost overrun in 2021 would have reached 572 million dollars and that of 2022, 671 million dollars. In total, during the three years contemplated in the update of the UCU report for the Augpee, the savings generated by energy production with renewable resources was 1,639 million dollars.
Renewable energies, essential for UTE’s balance sheets
The impact of this reduction, particularly in UTE and, therefore, in the rates of final consumers, was in charge of the consultancy lush, who also participated in the event with the presentation of their data. In that sense, Tamara Schandy, partner of the company, explained that the net cost of supplying domestic demand went from being 597 million dollars on average for the period 2007-2011 to 424 million dollars in the period 2015-2021.
Even with an increase in internal energy consumption, the cost of meeting that demand was reduced, on average, by a 1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by year.
In turn, in the activity it was highlighted that the lower price of the CAD was a key determinant in the improvement of the result of UTE; as well as that this reduction explains practically all the recomposition of the operating profitability of UTE —where the first was 52% and the second, 58%— in relation to the sale.
Likewise, and also thanks to the increase in generation capacity and the interconnection infrastructure that allowed the export of energy to the region, the impact of the drought in the dams, accompanied by a high electricity demand, did not affect the profits of the state company, which closed 2022 with a positive net balance of 162 million dollarsas pointed out by the president of the Augpee, Martin Bocage.
also saw a rate improvement, which became cheaper with the introduction of large-scale renewables, falling an average of 12% in real terms per MWh and 2%% in current dollars. Compared to 2013 —when this indicator peaked— energy prices fell by around 20% in relation to the average wage in the economy. They also fell more than other public rates in that span.
In any case, in the comparison of averages of the periods analyzed, the rates measured in real terms fell less than the cost of supplying the demand.
Source: Ambito
