India Gets Re-elected As President Of International Solar Alliance

New Delhi, October 15: In a major development, India is again going to lead the International Solar Alliance as it has been re-elected as the President of the organization for a term of two years during the virtual meeting of the third assembly of the International Solar Alliance. Along with India, France was also re-elected as the co-president of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) for a term of two years.

 

 

The event was attended by 34 ISA Members ministers. A total of 53 member countries and 5 signatory and prospective member countries participated in the Assembly. In addition to this, four new Vice-Presidents were also chosen to represent the four regions of ISA. The representatives of Fiji and Nauru for the Asia Pacific, Mauritius and Niger for Africa, the UK and the Netherlands for Europe and others, and Cuba and Guyana for Latin America and the Caribbean assumed the vice-presidency.

 

 

The assembly has also approved the initiatives of the Alliance's Secretariat in institutionalizing ISA’s engagement with other private and public corporate sector through the Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action. President of the ISA assembly and India’s Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister, R.K. Singh appreciated the Alliance Members coming together to work for combating climate change while speaking in the plenary.

 

Singh also greeted the seventh initiative on heating and cooling to be introduced for discussion in the Third Assembly. He said, "solar energy is already contributing around 2.8 percent of global electricity and if trends were to continue, by 2030 solar will become the most important source of energy for electricity production in large part of the world." Further, he also added, "ISA has aggregated demand for more than 270,000 solar pumps across 22 countries, more than 1 GW of Solar Rooftop across 11 countries, and more than 10GW of Solar Mini-grids across 9 countries under its respective programmes."

 

The ISA is an initiative that was launched by the Prime Minister of India and the President of France on November 30, 2015, in Paris, France, on the side-lines of the COP-21. The overarching objective of the ISA is to collectively address key common challenges to the scaling up of solar energy in ISA member countries. It also aims to undertake joint efforts required to reduce the cost of finance and the cost of technology, mobilise investments needed for massive deployment of solar energy, and pave the way for future technologies adapted to the needs.