Uruguay roundup: Hydropower plant overhaul oversight, solar PV plant construction tenders

Consultancy tender

Uruguayan state utility UTE launched a tender to contract a consultancy to oversee an overhaul of the Rincón de Baygorria hydroelectric power plant.

Bids for the consultancy work are due by July 1, according to documents published by the company.

A consortium comprising Saceem and Andritz was awarded the contract to carry out the actual renovation work at the 108MW plant.

Work is due to get underway this year, UTE has said previously. Estimated outlay is US$60mn and geared to extending the plant’s useful life by 60 years.

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Solar tender

Bids for a contract to carry out construction and assembly work on UTE’s planned Punta del Tigre solar PV plant are due June 24.

With installed capacity of 25MW, Punta del Tigre is earmarked for San José department. Bids were originally due May 22.

A previous tendering process for a solar park in Punta del Tigre was launched in 2021.

UTE has previously said it would launch this year tenders for solar PV parks with required investment of around US$100mn in San José and Cerro Largo departments. One is Punta del Tigre.

Uruguay is working to increase electrification of the economy, with grid connection, distributed generation, electromobility and smart meters key pillars.  

In 2022, UTE announced a five-year spending pot of US$1.38bn. 

Uruguay typically obtains about 98% of its electricity from hydropower, wind, biomass and solar PV.

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