AMN / NEW DELHI
India’s global initiative, the International Solar Alliance (ISA) will become a treaty-based international intergovernmental organization today. The ISA aims at increasing solar energy deployment in member countries.
The organisation headquartered in India, has its secretariat located in the campus of the National Institute of Solar Energy, Gurugram, Haryana. The initiative was jointly launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then President of France Francois Hollande on 30th November 2015 in Paris, on the sidelines of UN Climate Conference COP-21.
It aims at addressing obstacles to deployment at scale of solar energy through better harmonization and aggregation of demand from solar rich countries lying fully or partially between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Till date, 46 countries have signed and 19 countries have ratified the framework agreement of the ISA.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said in a statement that three programmes, scaling solar applications for agriculture use, affordable finance at scale, and scaling solar mini-grids have been launched. These programmes will help in achieving the overall goal of increasing solar energy deployment in ISA member countries for achieving universal energy access and speeding up economic development.
ISA has initiated plans to launch two more programmes, Scaling Solar Rooftops and Scaling Solar E-mobility and Storage. The ISA has also been developing a common risk mitigating mechanism for de-risking and reducing the financial cost of solar projects in ISA member countries.