Francois Hollande and PM Narendra Modi to inaugurate Interim secretariat of International Solar Alliance

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande will tomorrow jointly inaugurate the interim secretariat of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), an initiative launched by both the leaders at the Climate Change summit in Paris.

Hollande, who arrived today, will also lay the foundation stone of the headquarters of ISA, which is aimed at increasing utilisation and promotion of solar energy in solar-rich nations.

The event will be held at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) in Gurgaon.

ISA, an initiative of Prime Minister Modi is an alliance of 121 solar resource rich countries lying fully or partially between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.

It was jointly launched by Modi and Hollande on November 30 last year on the sidelines of the 21st Conference of Parties in Paris and representatives from around 70 countries including more than 30 Heads of States.

India offered to host ISA at the premises of NISE and has offered 5 acre land. Three floors of the Surya Bhawan of NISE has been offered for starting the Interim Secretariat.

India has offered a contribution of Rs 100 crore (around US $15 million) for creating ISA corpus fund and in addition to that, it has also offered training support for ISA member countries at the NISE.

ISA will be a major international body headquartered in India. It will be a new beginning for accelerating development and deployment of solar energy for achieving universal energy access and energy security of the present and future generations.

ISA's International Steering Committee (ISC) has already met two times and has identified development of a focused road map for ISA.

The Paris declaration on International Solar Alliance states that countries share the collective ambition to undertake innovative and concerted efforts for reducing the cost of finance and cost of technology for immediate deployment of competitive solar generation, financial instruments to mobilise more than 1000 billion US Dollars of investments needed by 2030 for the massive deployment of affordable solar energy and to pave the way for future solar generation.