ISA Decides On Solar Facility To Expedite Funding

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In its fifth general assembly, International Solar Alliance (ISA) has approved the creation of a ‘Solar Facility’ which will be a financial instrument to encourage investments in solar energy through insurance funds and payment guarantee. Readers will recall that a key mandate of the ISA itself was to enable financing for solar in developing countries.

In the fifth assembly, India’s Union Power Minister, RK Singh, was re-elected as the President of ISA. The solar facility adopted will have two financial components that will help attract investments in the solar energy sector world over but more specifically in Africa.

The two components are the solar insurance fund and the solar payment fund. The facility will help solar technologies with strong potentials to attract private capital into underserved African markets.

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The Solar Facility will also provide a mechanism for payment and insurance to cover the first loss guarantee. ISA said that the facility will be operationalized by the ISA very soon to crowdsource investments. These investments will come from different donors across the world and the renewable energy projects proposed in Africa will be able to access these funds to buy payment guarantees or part of their insurance premiums.

RK Singh informed that ISA aims at providing green electricity to about 700 million people who are still under darkness. He said that the world has tools to combat electricity related issues, and technology development is ensuring that more efficient resources will be made available in the future. “Now it is up to us how fast we can implement these. We also have to ensure that the energy transition is a success in all parts of the globe,” said RK Singh.

Also, India’s solar power experience will help the African countries in solar power development with regards to consulting, assisting, aggregating electricity demands, designing bids for them, awarding capacities, transmission and distribution among other things.

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RK Singh also informed that France and India will sign an agreement to support the green hydrogen mission of India in near future.

At present ISA has 110 member countries. The primary objective of the organisation is to increase energy access and energy security around the world and to promote solar power as an environmentally-friendly way to transition to a low-carbon future. ISA looks to bring $1 trillion in investments in solar energy by 2030 while reducing the costs of technology and financing.