International Solar Alliance to Become a Legal Entity on December 6 Means a Lot: ISA Chief

The International Solar Alliance (ISA), the India-headquartered grouping of 121 nations for promotion of solar energy means a lot for all member countries.

The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is all set to become a legal body on December 6 and it means a lot for all member countries, the interim director general Upendra Tripathy said.

In an interview with a newspaper, Tripathy said, “It’ll come into force on December 6 and it means a lot for all member countries. It’s very special for India as it’s the first inter-governmental international organisation to be permanently headquartered in India.”

The International Solar Alliance (ISA), the India-headquartered grouping of 121 nations for promotion of solar energy lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, is likely to spread its footprint beyond the tropics and “will become a huge organisation one day.”

“Countries like Germany, Nepal, Korea, Mongolia and others, who are outside the Tropics, have shown keen interest to join. The steering committee is open to all countries. The Committee with India as its chair and France as its co-chair have agreed to discuss it in the next meeting. Whether they’ll get the voting rights or not is something which will be decided by the steering committee,” Tripathy said.

International Solar Alliance was initially proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and launched at the India Africa Summit ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015.

The interim director general said being permanently located in India, the ISA will attract a lot of talents to India. “The world has, in fact, been looking at India for its new role. It, in fact, means a lot for the entire world as it’s the first and only specialised inter-governmental global body on solar energy.

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The ISA will drive a lot of R&D activities exclusively on solar – right from electricity generation to storage capacity. Once we achieve creating cost-effective storage capacity, the solar is going to play the most important role in driving us towards universal energy access goal and reducing overall global carbon footprints,” Tripathy added.

Asked how ISA would celebrate the historical day, Tripathy said, “December 6 will the ISA’s foundation day. We have urged all member countries to celebrate it as ‘Universal Energy Access’ day. We have also requested them to make people aware of the ISA’sexistence, its role and how would it play a key role in providing clean energy to everyone as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).”

The first chief of ISA also said that India will sign MoU with International Solar Alliance. “India has already contributed (around USD 27 million) for creating ISA corpus fund to meet cost of its secretariat (in Gurugram, Haryana) for first five years. The Prime Minister Office is expected to announce on December 6 how the emergence of International Solar Alliance would put the globe on clean energy path.”

Source: TOI