ABSTRACT
Any strategy for an across-the-board introduction of solar resources will be inappropriate or limited in scope if it does not also provide for the strategies of individual energy companies. There is a wide variety across the industry in terms of the way that these companies are responding to change and to new challenges. Some are looking to the oil fields of the Caucasus rather than those of the Middle East; others are seeking to tap ‘non-conventional’ fossil fuel reserves, whatever it may cost; others still are refocusing from oil to gas; some are diversifying their businesses into areas other than energy. A few are thinking further ahead and beginning to diversify into renewable energy by starting up appropriate subsidiaries. Notwithstanding these differences, there are four broad patterns which can be discerned:
Heightened industrial concentration, with political backing, through strategic mergers and aggressive competition against smaller firms. The public is left with the impression that energy firms are becoming increasingly dominant, and that the need to accommodate to their wishes is greater than ever. In reality, these firms are mustering their strength for a last life-or-death struggle.
Attempts to meet political demands for global climate protection in a way that does not call the future of the nuclear and fossil energy business into question. This is the motivation for proposals such as tradable global emissions rights: ‘Yes there must be change, but not in my back yard!’
As energy companies have realized that their strategy of categorical rejection of renewable energy (apart, of course, from the highly profitable hydropower dams that have long since formed part of the energy mix) is no longer tenable, they are attempting to ensure that renewable energy reaches the market on their terms.
A drive to bring energy suppliers from different sectors together to develop integrated services, albeit in a way that suits the energy companies, ie, within existing hierarchical structures.
