ISA for Affordable Solar Power & Raising its Share in Energy Mix

International Solar Alliance Founding Conference co-chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron was attended by 23 Heads of States besides other dignitaries from all over the world in New Delhi on March 11, 2018, where Modi offered $1.4 billion line of credit, one of the world’s largest investment plans in solar energy that will cover 27 projects in 15 countries and boost the much-required financial power to the solar sector and presented a 10-point action plan aimed at making solar power more affordable while raising the share of solar in the energy mix. Macron said France was committed to providing an additional €700 million in loans and support by 2022 to emerging economies for solar energy projects and assured that every single hurdle – financial, regulations and capacity – the solar energy sector is facing shall be lifted. Macron identified three issues to be addressed — the solar energy potential to be identified in each country; mobilisation of finance; and the provision of a favourable framework. He said the member countries of the ISA would ensure distribution of finance and expertise. France has so far committed $1.3 billion.

• International Solar Alliance (ISA), an alliance dedicated to the promotion of Solar energy among its member countries was unveiled by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then French President Francois Hollande at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris on November 30, 2015
• ISA brings together countries with rich solar potential to aggregate global demand, thereby reducing prices through bulk purchase, facilitating the deployment of existing solar technologies at scale, and promoting collaborative solar R&D and capacity building.
• ISA is open to 121 prospective member countries, most of them located between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn as this is the region worldwide with a surplus of bright sunlight for most of the year.
• ISA’s major objectives include global deployment of over 1,000GW of solar generation capacity by 2030, which according to Macron would require $1 trillion to achieve.
• ISA is the first international body that will have a secretariat in India, headquartered at Gurugram
• India will produce 175 GW electricity from renewable sources by 2022 and 100 GW will be from solar energy and would account for a tenth of ISA’s goal.
• India will provide 500 training slots for ISA member-countries and start a solar tech mission to lead R&D

India has moved to quickly scale up its use of renewable power as in 2014 India had 3 GW of solar power and by the end of 2017; it had nearly 7 times that, or 20 GW and now targets 175 GW by 2022, a goal once seen as hugely ambitious but now considered within reach by energy experts.

India added the third largest amount of national solar capacity in 2017, just behind the U.S. and China, and was overtaking Japan, according to Australia-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) research.

According to the International Energy Agency, as China’s economic growth slows, India’s is heating up, along with its energy demand. India is today the top contributor to growth in energy demand.

Now, in partnership with France, India wants to take its growing resources and knowledge on solar power and use it to help other sunny countries jumpstart their solar ambitions as well.

Prime Minister Modi and the French President Macron pressed a button to energise the solar panels and dedicated the 75 MW Solar Plant to the people that will generate 15.6 crore units of electricity annually, about 1.30 crore units per month. Built at a cost of around Rs 500 crore by French firm ENGIE, the Solar Plant has come up at Dadar Kalan village on the hilly terrain of the Vindhyas range. 118600 solar panels have been set up in over 380 acres. Power would be transmitted to Jigna sub-station of Mirzapur range of Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd.