The New Geopolitics of Clean Energy: Is Brazil Ready to Compete for Leadership or Will It Continue Exporting Potential?

By Laís Victor – Renewable Energy Specialist and Executive Director of Partnerships

The energy transition has definitively moved beyond an environmental or technological debate. It has become one of the main drivers of the global reorganization of economic power. Clean energy now represents influence, industrial competitiveness, energy security, and the ability to shape international regulatory standards. In other words, it has become synonymous with power.

The New Geopolitics of Clean Energy: Is Brazil Ready to Compete for Leadership or Will It Continue Exporting Potential?

In this new geopolitical landscape, countries that have understood this shift are advancing in a coordinated manner, integrating energy, industry, innovation, and foreign policy. Others, even those endowed with extraordinary natural advantages, still operate under fragmented and reactive frameworks. This is precisely where Brazil must take a more strategic look at itself.

Brazil has sun, wind, land, scale, and one of the cleanest electricity matrices in the world. But the central question is no longer whether we have potential. The question that truly matters is this: are we transforming this abundance into economic and geopolitical leadership, or will we once again settle for exporting potential while others capture value, technology, and power?

Clean Energy as an Instrument of Global Power

The global race for clean energy is not driven solely by climate commitments. It is a response to an increasingly unstable world marked by trade disputes, geopolitical tensions, and the restructuring of global value chains. Cheap, secure, low-carbon energy has become a prerequisite for reindustrialization, investment attraction, and strategic autonomy.

According to IRENA, renewable sources accounted for more than 92% of global electricity capacity expansion in 2024 a historic record that confirms the transition has moved from promise to concrete reality. This shift is accompanied by unprecedented capital flows: BloombergNEF data show that global investments in the energy transition reached approximately USD 1.77 trillion in 2023 and exceeded USD 2 trillion in 2024.

More important than volume, however, is where this capital is going. The United States, the European Union, and China are not investing only in renewable generation. They are building complete industrial value chains, internalizing technology, protecting strategic markets, and defining standards that are likely to become global.

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act allocated over USD 369 billion to green industrial incentives. The European Union has set explicit targets for domestic clean technology production. China has consolidated its global leadership in the manufacturing of solar panels, batteries, electrolyzers, and wind equipment. Reports from the International Energy Agency show that these countries dominate not only generation capacity, but also the industrial command of the transition.

In this context, clean energy has ceased to be merely an input. It has become an instrument of economic and diplomatic power. Those who control technology, manufacturing, and financing define the rules of the game. Those who only supply energy or raw inputs remain on the periphery of decision-making.

Brazil at the Center of the Map — and at a Crossroads

Brazil occupies a singular position in this dispute. Few countries combine an abundance of renewable resources, territorial scale, a significant domestic market, and consolidated experience in operating complex power systems. According to EPE, Brazil’s electricity matrix has reached nearly 90% renewable participation in recent years — far above the global average.

In wind energy, Brazil ranks among the world’s top five markets, while solar energy continues to grow rapidly, especially in distributed generation, according to ABEEólica and ABSOLAR.

Despite these structural advantages, Brazil still operates under a predominantly sectoral logic. We expand installed capacity, celebrate generation records, and attract relevant infrastructure investments. All of this is necessary — but insufficient. What is missing is a clear strategy to convert this energy advantage into industrial, technological, and geopolitical leadership.

The risk is familiar and historical: exporting natural resources with low value capture. Now, under a new guise — exporting clean energy, green hydrogen, or derivatives, while importing electrolyzers, batteries, inverters, digital systems, and know-how.

Exporting Energy or Exporting Intelligence?

The central question facing Brazil is straightforward: do we want to be an efficient exporter of clean energy, or an industrial leader in the low-carbon economy? The world is not looking only for renewable electricity. It is looking for decarbonized industrial products, sustainable value chains, certifications, technology, and predictability.

IRENA reports indicate that countries with abundant clean energy tend to position themselves as exporters of low-carbon hydrogen. However, the agency itself warns that without an associated industrial policy, these countries become locked into a low-value model: exporting molecules while importing technology.

This risk becomes even clearer when observing the concentration of global value chains.

OECD data show that more than 70% of global manufacturing of solar and battery equipment is concentrated in Asia. Those who fail to internalize technology capture only a fraction of the economic benefits of the transition.

Leadership, therefore, does not arise from natural potential alone. It is built through strategy, institutional coordination, and political decision-making.

Brazil’s Bottleneck: Systemic Coordination and Infrastructure

There is another point rarely discussed outside technical circles, yet central to Brazil’s energy future: the lack of systemic coordination between renewable expansion, transmission, flexibility, and storage. The rapid growth of intermittent sources is already placing pressure on Brazil’s power system.

ONS has signaled increasing operational challenges, including grid constraints and curtailment events. CCEE data also point to higher price volatility during certain periods, reflecting the absence of adequate flexibility mechanisms.

Without coordinated investment in transmission, storage, and grid digitalization, Brazil risks turning energy abundance into economic inefficiency. Energy without flow, flexibility, or proper price signals does not generate power — it generates waste.

The Role of the State: Coordination, Not Substitution

In this context, the debate over the role of the State must be elevated. This is not about intervention versus market. It is about strategic coordination. The energy transition is capital-intensive, technology-driven, and long-term by nature. It requires regulatory stability, clear economic signals, and integration across public policies.

Major economies have understood that clean energy is industrial policy, innovation policy, and foreign policy. In Brazil, fragmented policies, frequent rule changes, and the absence of a long-term integrated vision still prevail.

Without coordination, the market advances in a disorganized manner, opportunities are lost, and the country remains trapped in a model of quantitative leadership rather than qualitative leadership.

Three Strategic Choices for Brazil

If Brazil wants to compete for real leadership in the new geopolitics of clean energy, three strategic choices must be made clearly:

1. Industrial policy for key technologiesElectrolyzers, storage systems, power electronics, grid digitalization, and energy software cannot be treated as peripheral items.

2. Infrastructure and flexibility as national prioritiesTransmission, storage, and power system modernization are prerequisites for turning abundance into competitiveness.

3. Active international engagementBrazil must participate in defining standards, certifications, and agreements for the green economy, rather than remaining a rule-taker.

The Future Is Already Being Disputed

The new geopolitics of clean energy is already underway. Value chains are being structured now, standards are being defined now, and capital flows are being contracted now. IRENA is clear: success in the transition depends less on the availability of natural resources and more on institutional capacity to convert them into development, innovation, and competitiveness.

Brazil has resources, scale, and accumulated knowledge. What is still missing is turning energy into strategy. Because in the world that is emerging, leadership does not belong to those with the most sun or wind it belongs to those who understand that energy is, above all, power.

About the Author

Laís Victor is a renewable energy specialist and Executive Director of Partnerships, with over 15 years of experience in the energy sector. She works in business development, strategic alliance structuring, and investment attraction for energy transition projects, focusing on governance, systemic integration, and continuous monitoring of regulatory, operational, and market developments in Brazil and internationally.

The New Geopolitics of Clean Energy: Is Brazil Ready to Compete for Leadership or Will It Continue Exporting Potential?