France and India had a mutual agreement to launch an international "solar revolution" aimed to induce one terawatt of energy by the year 2030, which requires $1 trillion worth of funds. The International Solar Alliance (ISA) was introduced in Paris during the climate change convention last November 2015, it was headed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who acts as the chief architect of the program, along with French President Francois Hollande. The alliance is expected to have 121 member-countries, particularly, those areas around the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and near the "maximum solar intensity of over 300 days a year," as mentioned by a bureaucrat from the external affairs ministry of India. The purpose of the ISA is to manage the large-scale deployment of solar energy among the involved countries, which further consists 73 percent of the world’s population through combining the demand for funding, innovation, and technology. There are 62 countries that signed the framework agreement and 32 of it were officially validated, including Australia, Bangladesh, Cuba, France, Ghana, India, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Togo, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. According to Macron, these regions would probably gain 138 gigawatts of solar power for the next five years. Also, New Delhi had an announcement during the summit about the additional 27 solar projects for the Indian government among 15 countries. This involves Bangladesh, Chad, Congo, Ghana, Mali, Rwanda and Sri Lanka, with a calculated cost of $1.4 billion. On Monday, Macron and Modi introduced the 100-megawatt solar power plant produced by French firm ENGIE in the Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh state, Northern India. It is a major step towards the 100 gigawatts electricity target in India by 2022. France’s Macron acknowledged the efforts of India regarding the improvement of renewable energy capacity within a span of two years from 39GW to 63GW, while the solar energy also expanded to 140 percent.
PAUTAN SEGERA