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Article

11 Oct 2017

Author:
Upside-down World

Uruguay: Trade union leaders ask the Govt. to stop privatisation of power services and consider them as a “human right and a public good”

“Clean Energy, at What Cost? Uruguay’s Renewables Bid Deepens Electricity Inequality” – October 5, 2017

A Uruguayan union of electricity industry workers is raising probing questions about state and private ownership and how to ensure energy is a public good…After three years of debate, in 2008, the State of Uruguay decided to start diversifying the energy matrix by increasing the share of renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar. Although this process has been introduced as a paradigm for the region, the plan implemented for the development of “clean energy,” far from reverting the inequitable tariff model where those with lower incomes pay more, it actually deepened it. In addition, it favored the private companies’ advancement in the electricity sector. The State is committed to buying all the energy generated by private companies at a higher price than that of other sources…In this context, the Board of the Association of Employees of the National Administration of Power Plants and Electrical Transmissions (Aute) has been struggling to implement a model that addresses energy as a human right and a public good, not as a commodity, to be able to improve the quality of life of low-income sectors and protect the real wage…