India to propose creation of World Solar Bank at ISA's next summit

Global competition to decide which country will host the $10 billion bank

The Indian government will propose a World Solar Bank during the next assembly of International Solar Alliance (ISA) scheduled to be held in October.
 

The proposed financing agency is aimed to pool resources from across the globe and use them to fund solar power projects in ISA member countries.
 

The proposed capital size of the World Solar Bank would be $10 billion. ISA officials said the country that would request to host the headquarters of the bank would have to contribute 30 per cent of the proposed capital. “A global competition would be held among the member countries to decide who will have the bank’s headquarters,” said the ISA official.
 

They also said there was no decision on banning Chinese companies from participating in the tender floated by ISA for several renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects.
 

Upendra Tripathy, director general, ISA, said: “We follow the global tender norms stipulated by the United Nations. The rules do not prevent anyone from participating. The focus, however, would remain on lowering the cost.”

Officially announced during the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, the ISA is a partnership of solar resource-rich countries. Currently, 121 countries have agreed to be members of ISA. Most of these are countries with a large participation from Africa, South-east Asia, and Europe. Pakistan and China are not a members of the ISA. It is headquartered in Gurugram.
 

Speaking at the curtain raiser of the first ‘world solar technology’ summit to be hosted by ISA next month, R K Singh, minister of state for power and new & renewable energy, said solar is the future and technology would drive the cost of solar down.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address last week reiterated the mega plan of having a ‘One Sun, One World, One Grid’ (OSOWOG) or a trans-national electricity grid supplying solar power across the globe. The idea was first announced by the PM in 2018 during the first assembly of another international entity, the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

Responding on OSOWOG, Singh said the Centre was designing the plan to execute. “The process to set up a policy for this mega plan is in the works. We would involve several agencies for the same. We will evaluate what role ISA can play in it,” he said.