Intellectual Property and Renewable Energy: Who Owns the Right to the Transition?

Written by: Elena Sales

Edited by: Mya Ouassini Maamri

Senior Division

In an effort to meet global decarbonization targets, nearly 200 countries that participated in the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) committed to tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 (IRENA, n.d.; IEA, 2024). Although there has been significant growth in renewable energy development driven by technological advancements, challenges remain; high upfront costs, efficiency limits, and policy constraints still hinder global adoption (Luo, Zhang, Kamarudin, & Setyowati, 2025; IEA, 2024). In light of this context, innovation plays a key role in the energy transition, allowing for the creation of new renewable energy technologies and the improvement of existing ones. 

Intellectual Property Protection (IPP), the legal framework that gives creators exclusive rights over their creation, has therefore emerged as a crucial mechanism (WIPO, n.d.). It allows innovators to protect and commercialize their innovations, ultimately making them accessible to the public and incentivizing further technological development. At the same time, stringent IPP can sometimes restrict access to technologies, particularly in Global South countries. This raises an important question regarding the role of IPP in the context of the energy transition: does protecting innovation necessarily accelerate its global diffusion? This article will examine the mechanisms through which IPP influences renewable energy innovation (REI), evaluate the tensions between incentivizing innovation and enabling widespread diffusion, and explore potential approaches to reconcile these objectives. 

How Does IPP Influence Innovation?

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), which are protected through IPP Systems, can include patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, and enable individuals and organizations to earn recognition or benefit from what they create (WIPO, n.d.). In the context of renewable energy, this could look like a patent on a new form of solar photovoltaic (PV) panel by a European company. Companies with patents then gain exclusive rights for commercial use, which can in turn be licensed out to other organizations. 

IPP is generally accepted as a system that can promote innovation. It grants an entity the opportunity to financially benefit from holding a monopoly position in commercialization (Burrell, Jee, Hötte, & Ring, 2023). The financial returns to the patent holder help cover high capital costs for technology development and research and development (R&D), working as an incentive for pursuing riskier inventions (Luo, Zhang, Kamarudin, & Setyowati, 2025). Moreover, some sorts of IPR facilitate knowledge dissemination; patents, for example, require inventors to publicly disclose their technology in exchange for those limited exclusive rights.  This disclosure can generate knowledge spillovers, enabling other innovators to build upon existing technological advancements and potentially stimulate further innovation (Luo, Zhang, Kamarudin, & Setyowati, 2025; WIPO, 2017). 

When Does IP Become a Barrier to Innovation and Technology Transfer? 

Despite its potential to stimulate innovation, IPP remains contentious in global energy transition conversations. While patents can incentivize technological development, they may also restrict competition and complicate access to existing technologies (Luo, Zhang, Kamarudin, & Setyowati, 2025). This tension is particularly relevant for emerging markets and developing economies, which often depend on international technology transfer to accelerate their renewable energy transitions (Burrell, Jee, Hötte, & Ring, 2023). Critics argue that IP systems are heavily concentrated in the hands of developed, Global North nations, and that developing nations face financial and systemic barriers through restrictive licensing costs and IP negotiations that ultimately restrict their ability to access these technologies (Jee, Hötte, Ring, & Burrell, 2026). These conversations have led to broader international discussions on equitable technology transfer, including those through the UNFCCC Technology Mechanism (Zhou, 2019).  

The extent to which IPP itself is responsible for limiting renewable energy innovation and diffusion remains contested. Empirical evidence suggests that IPP and renewable energy innovation have a non-linear relationship: stronger IPP increases innovation up to a certain threshold, beyond which innovation declines (Luo, Zhang, Kamarudin, & Setyowati, 2025). One possible explanation for the non-linear relationship between IPP and REI is that overly stringent IP can create barriers to market entry, particularly for firms that lack substantial licensing resources, which may be especially relevant to innovation within emerging renewable energy industries.

Nevertheless, these findings do not establish IPP as a principal barrier to international technology transfer. Further research is needed to distinguish the impacts of IPP on REI from its impact on technology transfer and diffusion of these technologies. 

Expanding  Mechanisms to Balance Innovation and Technology Diffusion

Rather than treating intellectual property protection and technology transfer as competing objectives, an alternative approach is to examine mechanisms that could reconcile the two. One interesting mechanism is patent pools, a cooperative agreement in which multiple patent owners agree to share their licenses through a single package (University of Cambridge, 2022). By consolidating access to multiple technologies, patent pools can reduce transaction costs, simplify licensing negotiations, and potentially lower barriers to technological adoption.

The pharmaceutical sector can act as a proof-of-concept for the effectiveness of patent pools in facilitating technological access while preserving innovation. The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), for example, was created to expand access to essential medicines in low- and middle-income countries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the MPP created a package of essential COVID-19 therapeutics, allowing manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries to access said medicines  (Braimoh, Burrone, Gore, & Vijayaraghavan, 2024).  

Within the renewable energy sector, similar arrangements have emerged, although less developed than those in medicine. One early initiative, the Eco-Patent Commons, sought to pool climate technologies broadly, but it ultimately failed (University of Cambridge, 2022). More recently, specialized patent pools have emerged, such as the TOPCon Solar PV Patent Pool and the ESG Smart Pool, covering solar cell patents and electrical grid and ESG-related systems, respectively (Shaw, 2026). These developments suggest growing interest in expanding access to renewable technologies, but their ability to incentivize innovation or expand access to them has yet to be successfully demonstrated. Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge that expanding access to the IPRs for renewable technologies does not automatically lead to an increased uptake; that is highly dependent on technical expertise, finances available, and policy environments.

Going Forward

IPP remains an important mechanism for incentivizing renewable energy innovation, but its contribution to the global energy transition depends on more than its ability to encourage technological development. The challenge lies in ensuring that the technologies can also be accessed, adapted, and deployed at the scale needed for global decarbonization. While overly protective IP regimes may create barriers to competition and technology transfer, weakening protection alone is unlikely to resolve the financial, institutional, and technical constraints that limit renewable energy adoption. Collaborative mechanisms such as patent pools provide promising opportunities to reconcile innovation with broader technological access. Still, their ability to power the energy transition will ultimately ride on how willing patent owners are to participate and their integration into wider technology transfer and capacity building efforts.

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