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Geopolitics

Renewables and geopolitics: ‘There won’t be as much to fight over’

In the latest installment of pv magazine’s renewable energy and geopolitics series, Indra Overland says a new mindset is necessary to understand the geopolitics ahead as the rules of the fossil fuel era will no longer apply. A renewable world will have fewer strategic locations and bottlenecks and less territorial competition.

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Renewables and geopolitics: water and sun pivots to new world order

In our series of renewable energy and geopolitics interviews, Indra Øverland – head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs – explains why hydropower can be the perfect match for intermittent renewables such as solar and wind. Hydropower assets are one of the biggest geopolitical stories of the energy transition but receive almost no attention. Nations with strong hydro potential may become linchpins of regional renewable energy.

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Renewables & Geopolitics: China

In a new interview in a series on renewable energy and geopolitics, Indra Overland describes the possible trajectory of China’s bid to become the world’s solar energy leader. After building a leading position in key technologies and manufacturing, China may find a potential partner in the European Union, especially if the U.S. government pushes forward with its trade war against Beijing, Overland says. Solar and renewables are also helping the country expand its influence in Southeast Asia, fuelling concerns among some of its neighbors, he adds.

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Renewables and geopolitics: storage could rip up the current global picture

In the latest of a series of interviews about the geopolitics of renewable energy, Indra Overland, head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, explains how storage could change the global energy landscape by eliminating entrenched strategic dependencies. The impact of storage, he says, will be stronger in regions dependent on fossil fuels.

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Renewables & geopolitics: Russia

In the latest of our interviews about renewable energy and geopolitics, Indra Øverland – head of the Center for Energy Research – discusses the difficult relationship between Russia and renewable energy. Despite a belief the gas and oil superpower will have little interest in clean energy, Overland believes the world’s most extensive nation will use renewables to improve its domestic power supply, especially in remote regions. Russia has a highly continental climate, with lots of sunshine – more than most of Western Europe, Overland says. Whether it can take advantage of that potential, however, is unclear.

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Renewables & geopolitics: Saudi Arabia

In the third in a series of interviews on renewable energy and geopolitics, Indra Overland — head of the Center for Energy Research (NUPI) and a research panel member for the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of the Energy Transition at IRENA — discusses how Saudi Arabia is dealing with the energy transition. He also outlines the challenges the Middle Eastern country will face in the coming decades, as it shifts to a less oil-dependent economy. Although the country recently set new solar and renewable energy targets, Overland believes that the geopolitical balance in the Middle East could shift to countries such as Iran in the coming decades, even if the Saudi commitment to renewable energy proves genuine.

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Super-grids vs prosumer states: storage may decide the battle

Indra Overland, head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, explains how the world’s future energy landscape may include pan-regional super-grids. However, prosumer states seeking energy independence could also be in the mix. According to Overland, the two developments will go hand in hand and the balance between them will be determined by the competitiveness of storage technologies.

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IRENA: Energy transition will see geopolitical “winners and losers”

The International Renewable Energy Agency has plotted the potentially dramatic impacts of a global transition to renewable energy from fossil fuels. Today’s A New World report notes the transition requires international cooperation to manage disruption, as it will leave behind countries and industries that fail to adapt.

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A renewable world order

In the first in a series of interviews on the topic of renewable energy and geopolitics, Indra Overland, head of the Center for Energy Research (NUPI) and Member of the Research Panel, Global Commission on the Geopolitics of the Energy Transition at IRENA, discusses the effects a greater penetration of solar, and other renewable energies, in the global energy mix, could have on world order. Although fossil fuels will continue to play a dominant role in the coming years, sooner or later the geopolitics of energy will cease to be that of gas and oil, according to Overland. Although it is still difficult to predict future scenarios, he believes renewables have the potential to make nations more energy independent, and provide the basis for more peace and stability.

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