Speaking at the curtain-raiser for the 6th session of the ISA Assembly scheduled to be held between October 27 and November 2, the minister pointed out that between various renewables, solar has the edge as it is much more dependable, reliable and is available for more months in a year.
“In our country — I don’t know about other countries — we find that wind is available mostly for three or four months in a year during the monsoon period. In the other months, it is available at various lows. So solar has this major advantage of being much more reliable and much more available than wind and other renewables. And, we find that solar is again something which is capable of being deployed in small sizes, which makes it the best suited to ensure energy access to homes,” said Singh, also the President of the International Solar Alliance (ISA).
When ISA launched its campaign to ensure universal access to energy, he said, solar power took electricity to many villages and homes in the hills and in the deserts, which shows it has the advantage of being deployed in smaller sizes. The challenge lies in helping the 750 million people who do not have access to electricity. “I think that is a challenge to the conscience of humankind. Here we are talking about energy transition and we are talking about per capita energy consumption and per capita emissions, and here you have 750 million people who haven’t had access to electricity,” he said.
The minister said even in the past five-six years of the ISA’s existence, there hasn’t been a surge of people or countries coming forward to help meet this goal. “Now it is our mission in the International Solar Alliance to help these 750 million. That’s how we define our role — to help countries get access to electricity in remote areas, in areas which have been deprived of electricity.”
Singh said the ISA has a panel of experts to help set up regulatory and physical structures for an electricity system. “So we advise them, we make experts go and help them with that and we bear the cost. We help countries (that have people without access to electricity) also by carrying out projects, small projects, so that we can demonstrate the power of these projects in those countries — projects such as solarising of health centers, which has helped in storing vaccines for longer. We have projects for lighting schools, primary schools, we have boilers for cold chains for agriculture, and cold storages,” he said.The minister gave the example of Malawi’s parliament building that has been solarised and will be inaugurated on October 30.The most important contribution that ISA wants to and needs to make is to ensure that investment goes to these countries, he said. For this, the organisation has decided to set up a fund to make the investments.
The ISA has 124 signatories, out of which 94 have ratified the ISA Framework Agreement. He pointed out that this is much bigger than organisations such as the International Energy Agency, which has 35 members. Further, 168 countries have already registered to participate in the upcoming sixth ISA Assembly, he added.
