International Solar Alliance

The International Solar Alliance (ISA) was launched by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and former President of France Francois Hollande, at the 21st session of United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP-21), 2015 in Paris, France.
It was conceived as a coalition of solar-resource-rich countries (which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn) to address their special energy needs.
The Assembly of the ISA is the apex decision-making body which comprises representatives from each Member Country.
It aims at lowering the cost of technology and finance and thereby facilitate deployment of over 1,000 GW of solar energy and mobilize more than USD 1,000 billion into solar power by 2030 in Member countries.

To collectively address key common challenges to scale up solar energy applications in line with their needs;
To mobilize investments of more than USD 1000 billion by 2030;
To take coordinated action through programmes and activities launched on a voluntary basis, aimed at better harmonization, aggregation of demand, risk and resources, for promoting solar finance, solar technologies, innovation, R&D, capacity building etc.;
Reduce the cost of finance to increase investments in solar energy in member countries by promoting innovative financial mechanisms and mobilizing finance from Institutions;
Scale up applications of solar technologies in member countries, and
Facilitate collaborative research and development (R&D) activities in solar energy technologies among member countries.
Promote a common cyber platform for networking, cooperation and exchange of ideas among member countries;

India and France have been re-elected as President and Co- President of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) at the third assembly of the ISA.

For the first time since the inception of the framework agreement of ISA, Solar awards were conferred on countries of the region as well as institutions working for solar.
The assembly witnessed the conferment of the Visvesvaraya award which recognizes the countries with maximum floating solar capacity in each of the four regions of ISA.
The awards went to Japan for the Asia Pacific region and the Netherlands for Europe and Others regions.
In the wake of the global pandemic, ISA responded by setting up ISA CARES, an initiative dedicated to deployment of solar energy in healthcare sector in Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States (LDC/SIDS) ISA Member countries. The initiative aims to solarize one primary health sector in each district of the target Member countries.
Other information: The ISA has recently signed a tripartite agreement with the World Bank and the Government of India and is now actively involved in preparing a vision and implementation plan for One Sun One World One Grid Initiative to harness the power of interconnected grids for enabling energy transition to a low-carbon world.

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