About:
The ISA is a global intergovernmental organization dedicated to advancing solar power adoption for a carbon-neutral future. It was conceptualized on the side lines of COP21 in Paris in 2015 as a collaborative initiative between India and France, aimed at uniting efforts to combat climate change by implementing solar energy solutions. Currently, 100+ countries are signatories, with 90+ countries having ratified to become full members. Its mission is to unlock $1 trillion in solar investments by 2030 while reducing technology and financing costs.
Overview:
Transitioning towards a cleaner and sustainable future to tackle climate change requires a cooperative approach. Global initiatives like the International Solar Alliance with its robust on-ground implementation of solar solutions is a good example of a regional yet global cohesion as well as global efforts to advance energy transition. In this interview, Karan Mangotra, Partnership and Strategy Specialist at the ISA gives a detailed description on ISA’s ongoing programmes, its role in advancing an energy transition in the South Asia region, the One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG) initiative, and upcoming priorities – a major one being digitisation of grids. He also provides us with a much deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges in advancing regional cooperation on renewable energy.
Interview:
- The International Solar Alliance is an intergovernmental treaty-based organisation which was a product of UNFCCC’s 21st Conference of Parties (COP 15) held at Paris in 2015. The Alliance now has 124 member countries.
- ISA looks into everything solar and adjacency – batteries, green hydrogen etc. ISA’s work can be structured into 4 main buckets: catalytic financing, new technology policies and roadmaps, global capability centre and digitalisation, and regional and country platforms. The basic premise of the ISA is the developmental impact and the access to energy, grids, capacity and institutions. ISA’s focus on Unleashing the Role of Solar is carried out by conducting meticulous research for countries that can be broadly divided into 4 archetypes. This analytical research is based on the progress and extent of energy transition in each country.
- High-income countries – 100% electrified, balanced mix of generation, and high level of energy access. The areas of improvement in these countries include enhancing use of solar and battery storage. So, there is much to learn from this group of countries and can additionally provide support to other countries in improving use of RE.
- Emerging economies – This group of countries are defined by rapid growth translating into rapid energy demand which is being catered through conventional and renewable energy sources. Lack of storage capacities, and high energy demand during the night time also are defining characteristics of these countries.
- Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – where energy access is still a major issue.
- Small Island States – Energy transition in these countries is defined by diesel avoidance and fiscal stability.. For example, The Maldives, spent 13% of their GDP just to import diesel – which is a phenomenally large number. While income-wise, they are an emerging economy, but as a small island state, their energy transition story is about diesel imports.
- Using these archetypes the ISA then identified the major constraints in advancing an energy transition. A large number of these countries lie in the South Asian region and advancing the agenda of energy transition in this region will be influenced by the need for robust battery storage solutions even with the presence of solar and wind hybrid solutions. Emerging economies will also face an additional challenge of grid integration.
- ISA’s work in the South Asian region focuses on the following:
- While there is a large amount of private investments being made on solar, there is not enough interest or investments being made in the aspect of grid development. This could be attributed to the fact that grids are mostly controlled by the public sector. Therefore, one of the key focus areas of ISA’s work in the South Asia region will be on Asset Monetisation to Build New Grids – much like what has been done in India for highways through instruments called the Infrastructure Investment Trusts. Moving forward, monetisation of public assets such as grids, will address the issue of slow evacuation against high solar installations.
- The second thing that the ISA focuses on in South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean is digitisation- – creating digital twins of distribution utilities. Electricity, traditionally in South Asia and many parts in the world, is still based on a legacy system. With the advent of AI, there is immense potential that a machine-learning algorithm has, however, this will not be suitable for legacy grids unless they undergo digitisation. While AI and machine-learning will always be a private-sector industry-focused job, digitising assets in a distribution network like wires, DT transformers, poles will always be a public-sector job. It is not a costly affair now, it is just a human resource intensive work. So digitising the grids and then layering it with AI applications is going to be a game-changer in the way the future of grids will operate. We are starting to see examples from Delhi and Jaipur DISCOM – it is phenomenal because eventually South Asia’s drive is economic prosperity at reliable and affordable costs of energy. This is the same drive for our work at ISA. We also layer it with capacity building initiatives and training workshops but we focus on on-the-ground implementation and not doing reports per se.
- ISA with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Ministry of Power hosts the Secretariat for OSOWOG which was announced 2-3 years ago. The ethos was that since the Sun is always shining in some part of the world at some point of time, a connected grid can lead to a free flow of electricity. However, on ground, there are technical, geographic, political and environmental challenges and hence economic considerations need to be made.
- Regional connectivity, one of the programmes of OSOWOG, is explored after identifying low-hanging fruits to connect regional power pools. Technical feasibilities and assessments are conducted to overcome challenges and focus on implementation on ground. For example, technical assessments were done for Middle-East as well as for West and East Africa Power Pools.
- At OSOWOG, ISA Secretariat focuses on conducting technical work for countries that are not connected to India since ISA’s mandate is global. And within South Asia, since projects are mostly bilateral agreements, ISA doesn’t particularly get into projects per se.
- On financing: Focus is on economic value proposition and creating an entire ecosystem like the kind of institutional arrangement and regulatory environment needed. This way ISA steers away from just grant-based projects.
- On climate vulnerability:There is a detailed metric system embedding indicators focusing on climate resilience and maintenance monitoring. For instance, Floating Solar projects conducted by ISA in countries have a big metric on resilience of infrastructure to corrosion of salt and water. Also, communities are central to mitigation and adaptation. “Solar for natural ecosystems” brings a developmental, energy access aspect of communities as well as livelihood and gender issues to the fore.