ISA receives $9 mn fund approval for 2019-20, finalises 5 new programmes

Indian government and PSUs commit $26 million to ISA

The International Solar Alliance (ISA) has received a budget approval of $9 million for the next two years. The newly elected first Director General of ISA, Upendra Tripathy, said the ISA also finalised five new programmes and two projects to be implemented in the member countries under its wing.

Speaking to Business Standard after being elected as the DG, Tripathy said the ISA would work on two major projects for improving human resources in the solar sector and dissemination of information regarding ISA.

“The ISA has approved the STAR C (Solar Technology Application Resource Centre) project. The aim is to set up 121 centres, one in each presently eligible member country. These centres are being supported by the Schneider Foundation, Tata Foundation and the Phillips Foundation,” Tripathy said.

The second project approved by the ISA is the setting up of an ‘Infopedia’. Tripathy said, “The European Union has approved a grant of EUR 300,000 for it. This will act as a Common Communicator Platform, a Best Practices sharing platform and will also have a Country Counter where the nations can showcase policies to attract investment.”

Officially announced during UN Climate Change Conference in Paris on 30 November 2015, the ISA is a partnership of solar resource-rich countries proposed by India. Currently, there are 121 countries which have agreed to be members for ISA. Most of these are countries with a large participation from Africa, South-east Asia and Europe. Currently, 68 countries have signed the ISA framework and of this 44 have ratified their agreement.

ISA members assembly, which met for the first time at RE-Invest 2018 also approved five programmes. 

“The ISA has approved the Work Plan 2019 in its first meeting. Under the Work Plan, the ISA has given its nod for five projects. These are for agricultural pumps, finance mobilisation, mini grid, rooftop solar and solar e-mobility and storage,” said Tripathy.

Government officials said the Centre has committed $16 million to ISA as one-time corpus and will also put $2 million every year for five years. Apart from this, the power sector publicly owned companies – NTPC Ltd. Power Grid Corporation, Power Finance Corporation, Solar Energy Corporation, Coal India, ITPO etc have granted $9 million total to ISA. 

Officials said the ISA would use only the interest amount arising out of these funds. SoftBank and CLP have also committed to providing $1 million each to the ISA. 

The ISA also approved the proposal to extend its membership to beyond the 121 countries that fall within the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. This will allow other nations to join the ISA and gain its benefits, Tripathy added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi while inaugurating RE-Invest on October 2 had said the ISA would take over the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in the future. He added that India would invite countries in the UN General Assembly to be part of the global congregation of solar energy harnessing countries in order to strengthen the ISA.