Everyone knows that Uruguay is 220 volt, 50 cycle country. That goes without saying. But there’s a lot more to this than just making sure your hair dryer is set to 220v. If you plan on living here, you have to relearn a whole lot about what you’ve taken for granted back home (up North).
Our experience is limited to urban areas, Montevideo and Piriapolis, and in particular, the very top of San Antonio… We hear that electrical service varies from place to place, and can be very different in rural areas, so you cant take what we write here and apply it to your situation, unless you’re in Montevideo, PDE or Piria.
First of all, for the past several years, in all the above places, service has been reliable… In our 18 months here in the city, it’s as reliable as it was back home… One outage that lasted 15-20 minutes. Otherwise, no problems.
This past summer, there was a bit of a drought and nationwide, the government called on us to conserve energy. In our building, we had 2 elevators… the glitzy one and the service one. The service elevator drew less power, so the we used it during the crisis. The escalators in the major shopping malls and a the ultrabright lighting took hits. The descending escalators were shut off for the duration. When the crisis passed, everything went back to normal.
Plugs are a little strange here. I think Uruguay has receptacles from all over the world in this little country. It’s as if they changed standards every 10 or 15 years.. Over the years, we have accumulated almost 40 adaptors… When we built the new house, we had modular plugs put in, like the adaptors, that handle several different plugs… We still had a few plugs that wouldn’t fit so we cut them off and replaced them with standard plugs. Word of caution. When you do that, you blow out the warrantee… So dont do that on your fridge or other appliance until after the first year… which is as long as any guarantee is good for here.
In the city, we have never had a single issue with a surge or spike. It could be we’ve just been lucky. Or maybe Pocitos is special. But with a houseful of appliances, electronics and computers and LCD’s everywhere, so far, no problems. Cant say the same thing for the house in Piriapolis. Living on top of the mountain kind of guarantees a direct lightning strike a few times a year. A few telephones, several modems and a motherboard later, we’ve learned our lesson. When you hear a thunderbolt, pull everything out of the wall. This country sees a lot of electrical storms… so even a flatlander is at some risk of a big surge… but it’s probably the same or less than living in Florida.
Most laptops made today use transformers that are 220/110. So it’s likely you’ll have no problem plugging in here. But you’ll probably need an adaptor. Around $1 in most grocery stores. If you do use a laptop, it’s a good idea not to use it on your lap. Everyone I’ve ever used will shock you wherever smooth skin comes in contact with a metal part, like a little screw. Will never forget the first day I used a laptop on a hot day. I was wearing shorts, was sweating and put it on my lap. Whoa… I got up really fast. If you’re sensitive to voltage, run your hand along the case of the laptop lightly. You’ll feel a vibration. That’s the 220 trying to escape through you. I use a ground plug on mind and I’m certain the plug is grounded, but nothing changes. You still get tingly all over 
Fluorescent lights buzz like mad here. Electricians say it’s the cheap chinese ballasts they use here. But we remember it buzzing 20 years.. long before cheap Chinese imports. By the way, if the buzzing drives you crazy, take apart the fixture and take the ballast out of the unit and let it hang. No more buzz.
Electrical panels in Uruguay are bigger and have a lot more breakers (modern ones–older ones still use fuses). It seems like there’s a breaker for every plug. But it’s probably one to 3 or something like that. Lot more than up north. All wiring here runs through plastic tubing - not metal. Even when you run wires under the lawn, they’re in plastic, not metal and unprotected.. eg. there’s no concrete on top of them. But they do use ground interruption circuitry on the mains, so it should shut off before your gardner is killed.
You can use most plug in clocks from up north, even though they’re 60 cycle and here it’s 50. We brought down a couple of Radio Shack clocks that shine the time on the ceiling. We both wear glasses and used to hate getting up in the middle of the night and trying to make out the numbers on the LCD screen. This way, even without glasses, you can just open your eyes and see the time on the ceiling. Anyway, they both work perfectly on 110v.
You can use 110v ceiling fans too. You just need to run 110v to the fan or use a small transformer. The only issue will be speed. It will run around 15% slower, but no one’s ever noticed in our house. However bad the wobble on your NA fan, a local fan will be worse. We’ve taken to guarding our Casblancas’ lest we need to replace one with something local.
Electronics all works here… you can either use a special transformer for electronics or buy a multi-duty unit that does everything. We have a real Wurlitzer juke box we brought down. Popped it into a 1000v transformer from up north and instant sock hop. The carbon tetrachloride bubbles just like back home… Haven’t noticed them swirling in the opposite direction though
The washing machines work without incident.. but we still haven’t got the dryer going. Too complicated for the local electrical contractor so it’s sitting in the Whirlpool distributor, waiting for instructions from the USA.
Wires are a lot thinner here. Higher the voltage, the lower the current. Ahhhhh… theory becomes practical here.
The only supplier of electricity in Uruguay is UTE. You can have your own generator… (lots of folks out in the country do), but city folks are all UTE customers.
No, there’s no internet over the elecrtrical grid. Antel has a lock on wireline internet.
Cost of KW hour goes up to almost 5 pesos. I’ve seen friends with under 800 pesos per month, and others with $5000 per month.. Depends on your lifestyle. Of course, if you heat with electricity, your winter bills will be considerably higher.
Under floor electrical cable resistance heating is being used more and more in high end residential construction. Main provider here is Eurocable. I believe most of Uruguay’s power is hydro electric. Anyone care to comment on that? One thing for sure, they do not have a nuke plant.
Incandescent lightbulbs dont last a long time here. Not sure why. The more modern electronic light bulbs are hit and miss. For every 4 we have bought, one dies within a month. That makes them 30% more expensive than you expect. Electronic bulbs are very big here. Have been for many years. The newer swirly types are taking over from the elongated tube types.
Dont use surge proectors from back home. They will blow up in a 220v plug.
