The International Solar Alliance (ISA) was officially launched yesterday March 11, in New Delhi, India. Initiated since 2015, the alliance aims to ease the implementation, by 2030, of additional solar plants estimated at 1, 000 GW, five times the current global capacity.  To this end, the project initiators such as US and China will mobilize $1, 000 billion by the same period. They will thus set a platform for cooperation between developed countries with solar energy technologies and countries in the southern hemisphere.

Indeed, although countries in the southern hemisphere have significantly abundant solar resources (300 sunny days per year), they produce only 23% of solar electricity consumed worldwide. A share which could increase with further access to technology and financing.

On the platform, those countries will publish tenders and guarantees, with the expectation to secure private investors’ participation, under the supervision of the World Bank. To date, 121 countries are involved in the International Solar Alliance.

“This struggle for renewable energy is also a struggle for empowerment: the empowerment given to each State of the Solar Alliance to succeed at national-scale, to give opportunity to everyone and allow citizens to build their own place and therefore to be trained to create jobs in these sectors,” France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who co-chaired the launching ceremony said. He also mentioned that his country will commit €1 billion to the alliance, through the French Development Agency.

Gwladys Johnson Akinocho