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reFUEL

reFUEL is a 5 year research project, funded by the European Research Council with a Starting Grant and hosted at the Institute for Sustainable Economic Development, BOKU University, Vienna. The main research objective of the project is to assess the role of trade in a future renewable energy world.

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Status quo

Recent techno-economic modelling studies indicate low intensities in trade of energy commodities between global regions in a future global low-carbon energy system, because deep greenhouse-gas emission cuts can be achieved in fully electrified renewable energy systems on a continental or country scale.

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An alternative scenario

However, the existing modelling partly neglects potential drivers of globalization and may, therefore, wrongly project regionalization of energy systems. In particular, an increase in international trade flows in the energy sector can be caused by

  • new, easily tradable, low-cost renewable synthetic fuels (e.g. solar & electric fuels)

  • global bio-physical variability of renewables (e.g. solar radiation and freshwater availability)

  • regional differences in how land is negotiated and valued for the expansion of energy infrastructure.

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What we do

We work on improving the understanding of how the spatial configuration of renewables in low-carbon energy systems is affected by these drivers, and in particular what social, environmental, and economic impacts different global distributions of renewable energy production may have. To this aim, we analzye

  • Environmental impacts of renewable energy expansion in the past

  • Social impacts and conflicts associated with the territorialization of renewable energy systems

  • Dynamics of land-efficiency of renewables

And we explore…

  • Options for increasing land-efficiency of renewables

  • Allocations of renewables between regions and resulting trade streams in terms of efficiency, equity, and justice

Our approach integrates open data sources from public institutions and user-generated GIS data. Existing models for Europe and Brazil are used for validation. Qualitative and mixed methods approaches  in local case studies complement the modeling approaches and increase our understanding of the multiscalar implications of the expansion of renewables on the local scale.

The project explicitly contrasts neo-classical economic analysis with multi-level perspectives from energy geographies. In particular, we aim at understanding how elements of energy justice can be incorporated in the modeling of renewable energy generation and potential associated trade streams.