The two-day 7th International Solar Assembly — an India-driven global alliance on harnessing solar energy with 120 countries as members — began in Delhi on Monday.
Ajay Mathur, Director General of International Solar Alliance (ISA), talks to Jitendra Choubey and underlines global financial challenges to expand solar projects in developing countries. The ISA has set a climate goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Excerpts:
Where do India and the rest of the world stand in terms of solar waste management capacity?
One of the problems with solar is its long gestation period and the lack of international standards for making solar panels from recycled solar waste. The current modern solar technology is different from the older one. Secondly, we need to develop a decentralized cost-effective recycling facility. So, ISA is in talks with various organizations such as the International Electrotechnical Commission and the International Standardization Organization to create the standards and move towards a future in which the solar panels can be completely recycled. India has issued electronic waste rules that address the problem in the first instance.
India has a regional inequality in the development of Renewable Energy — south and west India is far ahead of North and East. How do you see this inequality?
Historically, Central and East India regions are rich in coal, which gets very expensive by the time it reaches South or West India. These are also the places where we get the best resource as far as solar energy is concerned. West India has a lot of sun whereas South India has both sun and rain. The rain comes twice a year and cleans up the panels, increasing their efficiency. So, per kilowatt hours are the highest in the South as compared to the rest of India.
Don’t you think these land pockets would create a massive land conflict?
We need to move from the traditional way of land acquisition to a land lease system based on installation capacity. The state can lease the land from farmers and sell this land to companies who set up solar plants. So, they pay farmers directly and regularly. Further, farmers can also provide their labour to solar farms. This will encourage farmers’ participation in energy development.
Why did India’s solar rooftop programme fail to get significant traction?
Yes, it has been a slower than expected start. It is a new scheme and will take some time. There are two biggest challenges: One is the lack of gradation of vendor service and another is power companies. For vendor gradation, the government needs to run a campaign among users to rate vendors’ experience so that new users can approach them directly for installation service.
India’s solar sector is hampered by a shortage of skilled workers. How can the ISA help India to fill the gap?
Imparting training to a large number of manpower is going to be India’s answer. The country has enough manpower for policy making as well as manpower for large companies. How about the village and city level where most of the action is taking place? The counrty needs to train people on a large scale. The ISA works on the crucials areas of capacity building where we impart training.
How is ISA playing a role in mobilising finances required for solar projects in the upcoming COP29?
The ISA has been the authoritative voice of solar in COP 29. We collaborate with government as well as private sector equivalent organizations such as the Global Solar Council, an association of various national solar energy agencies. We are looking at finance from both public and private sectors for our solar actions.
We have adequate finance for commercial activity to invest in solar and other renewables. However, the vast amount, almost 85% of funds, goes to the OECD countries such as China, India and Brazil whereas the whole Africa continent gets only 3% despite Africa having 60% of the world’s solar radiation. The ISA is creating a guarantee mechanism for investment.