The International Solar Alliance (ISA) will become a treaty-based international intergovernmental organization from today- 6th December 2017. The ISA, headquartered in India, has its Secretariat located in the campus of National Institute of Solar Energy, Gwalpahari, Gurgaon, Haryana.
The ISA is an Indian initiative, jointly launched by the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi and the President of France on 30th November 2015 in Paris, on the sidelines of COP-21, the UN Climate Conference.
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 Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.
As of date, 46 countries have signed and 19 countries have ratified the Framework Agreement of ISA.
ISA Interim Secretariat has been operational as a de–facto organization since 25th January, 2016. Till date Three programs have been launched-
- Scaling Solar Applications for Agriculture Use
- Affordable Finance at Scale
- Scaling Solar Mini–grids
Two more are in pipeline –
- Scaling Solar Rooftops
- Scaling Solar E–mobility and Storage.
Further, ISA has also been developing a Common Risk Mitigating Mechanism (CRMM) for de–risking and reducing the financial cost of solar projects in the ISA member countries.
Another major initiative is establishment of Digital Infopedia which will serve as a platform to enable policy makers, Ministers and corporate leaders from ISA countries to interact, connect, communicate and collaborate with one another.
This will help pave the way for future solar generation, storage and good technologies for each prospective member countries’ individual needs, by effectively mobilizing more than US$1000 billion in investments that will be required by 2030.
India has offered to meet ISA Secretariat expenses for initial five years. In addition, the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India has set aside US$2 billion for solar projects in Africa out of Government of India’s US$10 billion concessional Line of Credit (LOC) for Africa. Government of France has also earmarked Euro 300 million soft loan for solar related projects in ISA member countries.