Hollande and Modi Launch International Solar Alliance to bring together 122 Countries in Gwal Pahari, Gurgaon

President Hollande and Prime Minister Modi jointly launched the new International Solar Alliance (ISA) initiative in Paris on 30 November 2015 on the sidelines of the COP 21. The two leaders jointly laid the foundation stone of the building for Headquarters of International Solar Alliance (ISA) and inaugurated the interim Secretariat of the ISA in Gurgaon, India, on 25 January 2016.

The French have committed to support the solar projects launched by the member countries of ISA. The AFD Group will provide funding amounting to 300 million Euros. This pledge is in line with the financing of 2 billion Euros for the development of renewable energies, announced by France during COP21. India has set apart 5 acres of land and three floors at NISE (National Institute for Solar Energy). Two public sector companies have offered 1 million each to get ISA started. Modi says that 122 countries between the two tropics have more than 300 days of sunshine. India is the price candidate for the ISA whose interim secretariat is now in Gurgaon. He said that India is already generating 5000 MW of solar energy.

Hollande on ISA: The Solar Alliance must Act in Three Ways

Pool the demand of high-potential countries and use the resulting mass effect to bring down the financing costs.

Harmonize the solar markets and open them up to reduce the cost of investments and for users.

Enable the necessary technology transfers between developed and developing countries.

This means that national and local governments must provide impetus by creating a favourable regulatory and financial framework.

This means mobilizing financial levers for supporting investments and speeding up project delivery.

Finally, this means mobilizing companies, like the terawatt initiative, in which many French companies which are supporting me are involved.

The initial projects must begin quickly. India has offered to set up the headquarters. The first meeting was held in Abu Dhabi a few days ago. The alliance must begin work without delay in order to achieve tangible results on the ground.

The Alliance has France’s full support

I would like to announce here that the French development agency will allocate €300 million to developing solar energy over the next five years in order to finance the initial projects.

We will mobilize our companies, our research and technological institutions, and our diplomatic network to help achieve our shared objectives

We will work with India on the vital issue of the cost of financing. Small and fragmented solar projects are less attractive to investors. We will use our expertise to find solutions to make the projects more competitive.

We will also act within the framework of the COP21 presidency. I would like more and more partners to join our alliance and for its political declaration to be signed by as many heads to state and government as possible at the signing of the Paris agreement on 22 April in New York, which will also be the opportunity to launch the first operational projects.

Contributing to the success of the Alliance also means launching French-Indian projects.

We can rely on our shared commitment.

Last spring, India set a hugely ambitious national target of 100 solar gigawatts by 2022, which is a 30-fold increase in its current capacity.

In France, the law on energy transition has set a target to increase the share of renewable energies to 32% of the final energy consumption by 2030, and to increase the share of renewables in electricity production to 40%.

The doubling of the call for tender which I decided upon in July will enable a further 1 GW to be quickly installed and 500 territories to be mobilized, led by the minister of ecology.

French companies are already heavily involved in solar energy in India, where they account for 10% of installed capacity.

Many projects are being set up and agreements have once again been started during this visit. I propose that our target should be to build at least 10 gigawatts of new capacity.