World Solar Technology Summit: ISA

World Solar Technology Summit: ISA

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Conservation; Environment 

Context: The International Solar Alliance (ISA) to organise the First World Solar Technology Summit on 8th September, 2020 on a virtual platform.

About World Solar technology summit

• The objective of the event is to bring the spotlight on state-of-the-art technologies as well as next-generation technologies which will provide impetus to the efforts towards harnessing solar energy more efficiently.
• Four Sessions: The event will hold four technical sessions that would be available to the participants in different languages namely English, Spanish, French & Arabic.

I JOSE:

• ISA would also launch the ISA Journal on Solar Energy (I JOSE) that would help authors from across the globe to publish their articles on solar energy, during the event.

International Solar Alliance

• The launch of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) was announced by the Prime Minister of India (Narendra Modi) and former President of France (Francois Hollande) on 30th November 2015, at the 21st session of United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris, France.
• It was conceived as a coalition of solar-resource-rich countries (which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn) to address their special energy needs.
• 67 countries have signed and ratified the ISA framework agreement.
• The Assembly of the ISA is the apex decision-making body which comprises representatives from each Member Country.
• It aims at lowering the cost of technology and finance and thereby facilitate deployment of over 1,000 GW of solar energy and mobilize more than USD 1,000 billion into solar power by 2030 in Member countries.
• Solar is a key source of affordable and reliable energy, thus it could play a significant role in achieving the universal energy access goal (SDG 7).
• The Government of India has allotted 5 acres of land to the ISA in National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) campus, Gurugram and has released a sum of Rs. 160 crore for creating a corpus fund, building infrastructure and meeting day to day recurring expenditure of the ISA up to the year 2021-22.