Oil

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund will invest in non-listed infrastructure, with the government stressing such commitments will not be a climate policy measure but an investment strategy. The fund had already announced an intent to gradually divest holdings in oil and gas companies and related projects.

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.

Solar PV has come a long way as a power generation technology. As highlighted in SolarPower Europe’s Global Market Outlook for 2018 to 2022, solar added 98 GW of net generation capacity last year, eclipsing all other forms of electricity generation. But solar needs to do a lot more, and to do it very soon if we want to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and keep global warming to below 1.5°C from pre-industrial levels.

Increasing scrutiny is putting pressure on the world’s biggest oil and gas companies to jump aboard the green energy wagon. While some are making efforts to divest away from conventional energies, figures estimate that just 1.3% of total CAPEX in 2018 from the leading 24 companies will go to alternative energies.

Vitol and Low Carbon have announced a €200 million fund, VLC Renewables, which will invest in renewable energy projects across Europe. Large off-shore wind will be the primary focus, with no solar plans as of yet.

The Saudi Electricity Company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Public Investment Fund and Softbank Vision Fund to create 3 GW of solar and storage capacity in the Kingdom in 2018.

With record-breaking announcements, job losses, company reshuffles and top-down branding decisions, it’s just another typical week in the fast-paced world of solar PV.

Carbon Tracker and Imperial College London report calls solar power and electric vehicles ‘game changers’ whose potential impact is consistently underestimated by large utilities.