PM Narendra Modi inaugurates first assembly of International Solar Alliance

About International Solar Alliance (ISA)

• International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an alliance of 121 solar resource rich countries, lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. 
• ISA was jointly launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the then President of France, Francois Hollande on November 30, 2015 in Paris on the side-lines of the 21st Conference of Parties (CoP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• The ISA Framework Agreement was opened for signature on November 15, 2016 in Marrakech, Morocco on the side-lines of CoP-22.
• ISA became the first full-fledged treaty based international intergovernmental organization headquartered in India on December 6, 2017, in conformity with the ISA Framework Agreement and 30 days after ratification by the 15th country, Guinea.
• The Governing Structure of the ISA consists of an Assembly, a Council and a Secretariat. The ISA Assembly provides guidance, direction and advice to the Secretariat for undertaking the activities.
• ISA has presently four ongoing programmes: Scaling Solar Applications for Agricultural Use, Affordable Finance at Scale, Scaling Solar Mini Grids and Scaling Solar Rooftop catering to the needs of solar energy in specific areas.
• Till date, out of 121 prospective member countries, 70 countries have signed the Framework Agreement of the ISA. 47 of these countries have ratified the ISA treaty.

The vision and mission of the International Solar Alliance is to provide a dedicated platform for cooperation among solar resource rich countries that lie completely or partial between the Tropics of Capricorn & Cancer.

It aims to undertake joint efforts required to reduce the cost of finance and technology and mobilise more than USD 1000 billion of investments needed by 2030 for massive deployment of solar energy.

It aims to create a collaborative platform for increased deployment of solar energy technologies to enhance energy security and sustainable development. It will work with partner countries to formulate projects and programmes to accelerate development of clean solar energy technologies.

Under this initiative, the countries share the collective ambition:

(i) To address obstacles that stand in the way of rapid and massive scale-up of solar energy

(ii) To undertake innovative and concerted efforts for reducing the cost of finance and cost of technology for immediate deployment of competitive solar generation

(iii) To mobilise more than USD 1000 billion of investments by 2030.

India committed Rs 175 crore for setting up of ISA and till date released a sum of Rs 145 crore for creating a corpus fund, building infrastructure and meeting day to day recurring expenditure.

On March 11, 2018, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron co-hosted the founding conference of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

The conference adopted the Delhi Solar Agenda under which the member states agreed to pursue an increased share of solar energy in the final energy consumption in respective national energy mix, as a means of tackling global challenges of climate change.