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Globally, the level of electricity grid interconnectedness between neighboring countries varies depending on the level of regional cooperation enabled by institutions. As suggested by previous research, in transboundary river basins, this variation affects the environment and the management of transboundary waters. In regions where all electricity utilities are connected and function at a synchronized frequency, and where integrated electricity market mechanisms function, the stress on the shared water resources tends to be less. Turkey shares river basins and power transmission lines in Europe both with the members of the European Union (EU) and with non-member states. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature on the geopolitics of renewable energy by comparing the level of Turkey’s electricity trade integrity with its EU-member European neighbors and with its non-EU-member neighbors and discuss the potential impacts of the transboundary electricity trade on the environment and the shared water resources. The main argument in this paper is that the higher level of electricity trade between Turkey and its EU-member neighbors is facilitated and boosted by Turkey’s membership to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E). The higher level of electricity interconnection leads to a higher level of cooperation in water and environment issues in the shared river basins between Turkey and Europe through the facilitating role of established institutions.

Transboundary river basin management problems have been on top of the agenda of Central Asian politics, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This issue area has was given priority in the global political-environmental debates since the emergence of the Aral Sea problem during the Soviet era. In contrast, the environmental issues regarding the Kura-Araks river basin were relatively less discussed in the literature and thus have been paid less attention in the global political-environmental debates. This paper compares the environmental and economic issue areas of the water management and hydroelectricity generation in the Kura-Araks river basin and the Aral Sea basin and recommends solutions based on dyad-level regional electricity trade schemes based on regional cooperation models.

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