The International Solar Alliance (ISA), led by India and France, has decided to implement the ambitious Green Grids Initiative — One Sun, One World, One Grid — in the coming years.
The initiative will link East Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Europe, and Africa on a solar grid.
The ISA, conceptualised on the sidelines of the Paris climate summit in 2015,
now has 125 members across the world.
The initiative was mooted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the first assembly of the ISA in October 2018, and then further proposed to take forward on the sidelines of the COP 26 in Glasgow alongside the UK government.
“The ‘One Sun, One World, One Grid’ project has been formally adopted by the ISA in our assembly that was held two weeks back in Delhi, where 550 delegates from 137 countries were present,” ISA director Asish Khanna told The Telegraph during a recent interview on the sidelines of the COP 30 at Belem in Brazil.
“At the COP 30, we also have an important session on the agenda, which was highly supported by all countries. We have just started to prepare the technical report, which is expected to be ready by February 2026, and subsequently, we will get in touch with countries for implementation,” added Khanna.
Earlier, a source in the ISA had shared that India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar had cross-border transmission infrastructure which could be upgraded for the initiative. The proposed grid may have an interconnection capacity of 2,600 gigawatt by 2050.
Khanna has also pointed out that a digital Solar Silicon Valley project will be launched from mid next year with a focus on digital capacity building and services. The project, now completely virtual, expects to have an address in Gurgaon within two to three years, he said.
“The ISA has links to 17 academic institutes in 17 countries, which are working on solar (energy) and where we have set up solar labs in collaboration with these institutes. We, through this virtual Solar Silicon Valley project, want to link these institutes to create a global digital platform; a virtual centre for focusing on solar-related training, artificial intelligence, communication and services in its first phase,” said Khanna, who is the third director of the ISA since it was officially launched in 2018.
Khanna pointed out that within two to three years, an institute of excellence would be set up in Gurgaon by further expanding the activities related to capacity building, particularly focusing on digital and artificial intelligence-driven advisory services.
“ISA is the global south’s largest multilateral institution based out of India, with 125 countries as members. While it took 25 years for the world to have the first 1,000 gigawatt of solar power, the next 1,000 gigawatt happened only in the last two years. And, now it is going to double from 2,000 gigawatts to 4,000 gigawatts in the next four years with all these initiatives of the ISA facilitating the paradigm shift”, claimed Khanna.