15 CONCLUSIONS
397
national problems. We see this in every country in this book. Even though
they have very different situations with respect to economic development,
geography, resource endowments, domestic politics, vested interests, etc.,
renewable energy policy is overwhelmingly dealt with as a case of domestic
politics. The Nordic countries are a slight exception, as they are tied
together through interconnectors and have traded electricity through
Nord Pool for many decades already. Thus, here renewable energy policy
is already automatically part of an international collaboration. However,
what we clearly see with Norway, where renewable energy policy has a
distinct international dimension (or even supranational, because of the
interaction with the EU), politicians think of this as energy policy first,
with climate policy a distant second, almost more a bonus than anything
else. It is primarily about how to utilize Norwegian natural resources to
create social profits. Thus, despite subsea cables between countries being
international by definition, policymaking is focused very much on the
national.
Unless the next few years see major breakthroughs in energy storage
investment and technologies, it is hard to see that the international
dimension to renewable expansion will disappear. As renewable energy
expands, interconnectors between countries will become ever more
important to a well-functioning energy system. It will make countries
more vulnerable as they will depend more on each other to create a
kind of collective energy security system, thus there is an obvious energy
security dimension to this. And so, in conclusion, while the renewable
expansion is progressing fast, in many countries there are international
dimensions that will need to be explored and international problems that
must be solved.
This could easily become the focus of our next volume!
Note
1. Curtailment used to be a wind power problem. Today, with the rapid influx
of solar PV, it is also becoming a solar power problem.
References
Asano, Kenji. 2014. Early Promoter of Solar Photovoltaics. In The Political
Economy of Renewable Energy and Energy Security, ed. Espen Moe and Paul
Midford, 157–174. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
397
national problems. We see this in every country in this book. Even though
they have very different situations with respect to economic development,
geography, resource endowments, domestic politics, vested interests, etc.,
renewable energy policy is overwhelmingly dealt with as a case of domestic
politics. The Nordic countries are a slight exception, as they are tied
together through interconnectors and have traded electricity through
Nord Pool for many decades already. Thus, here renewable energy policy
is already automatically part of an international collaboration. However,
what we clearly see with Norway, where renewable energy policy has a
distinct international dimension (or even supranational, because of the
interaction with the EU), politicians think of this as energy policy first,
with climate policy a distant second, almost more a bonus than anything
else. It is primarily about how to utilize Norwegian natural resources to
create social profits. Thus, despite subsea cables between countries being
international by definition, policymaking is focused very much on the
national.
Unless the next few years see major breakthroughs in energy storage
investment and technologies, it is hard to see that the international
dimension to renewable expansion will disappear. As renewable energy
expands, interconnectors between countries will become ever more
important to a well-functioning energy system. It will make countries
more vulnerable as they will depend more on each other to create a
kind of collective energy security system, thus there is an obvious energy
security dimension to this. And so, in conclusion, while the renewable
expansion is progressing fast, in many countries there are international
dimensions that will need to be explored and international problems that
must be solved.
This could easily become the focus of our next volume!
Note
1. Curtailment used to be a wind power problem. Today, with the rapid influx
of solar PV, it is also becoming a solar power problem.
References
Asano, Kenji. 2014. Early Promoter of Solar Photovoltaics. In The Political
Economy of Renewable Energy and Energy Security, ed. Espen Moe and Paul
Midford, 157–174. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.