International Solar Alliance (isa)
ISA is the first treaty-based International Intergovernmental Organization launched by India and France on 30 November 2015 in Paris and entered into force on 6 December 2017. The first Assembly of the ISA was convened on October 3, 2018. ISA’s motto is, “let us together make the sun brighter”.
ISA has launched five programmes so far:
o Scaling Solar Applications for Agriculture Use;
o Affordable Finance at Scale;
o Scaling Solar Mini-Grids;
o Scaling Solar Rooftop;
o Scaling Solar in E-mobility and Storage.
Key Initiatives
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ISA has been working with various financial institutions for scaling up financing, lowering the cost of capital, and designing innovative financial instruments to accelerate the massive deployment of solar energy.
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In addition, “Action to Transaction” meets an innovative platform where project developers and bankers were brought together, facilitated 238 projects in ISA countries.
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A task force was constituted to design a Common Risk Mitigation Mechanism to reduce risks and financial cost of solar projects. The World Bank and Agence Française de Development (AFD) are developing a joint Global Solar Risk Mitigation Initiative (SRMI), an integrated approach to tackle policy, technical and financial issues.
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The ISA is also working with the European Investment Bank and the EU Commission to launch an off-grid fund, initially for four Asian member countries of the ISA, to rapidly scale up to Africa and Latin America.
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A project pipeline of US$5 billion in mini grids and rooftops is created.
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ISA has forged financial partnerships with various MDBs, UN agencies, Climate Parliament, European Commission, Commonwealth Secretariat and other International and Intergovernmental organizations.
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ISA Solar Award has been instituted for Solar Scientists doing extraordinary work across ISA countries with a onetime corpus contribution of US$1.5 million from the Government of Haryana.