Musk, Masayoshi, Nobel winners may virtually attend Sep Delhi global solar meet

ISA, the first treaty-based international government organization headquartered in India, is working to ‘virtually' rope in most of the global solar elite for the Summit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give the inaugural address.

The who’s who of the global solar landscape expected to attend the Summit include Nobel laureates Mario Molina and M. Stanley Whittingham, France’ ecological transition minister Barbara Pompili and the co-president of the ISA Assembly, European Commission’ executive vice president Frans Timmermans and ISA president and India’s power and renewable energy minister Raj Kumar Singh.

Whittingham who was jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of lithium ion batteries will give the keynote address.

This comes at a time of India' plan to put in place domestic manufacturing for lithium-ion cells, that are the building blocks of rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), laptops and mobile phones. Lithium-based batteries also cater to the consumer electronics industry and power grids, given the intermittent nature of electricity from clean energy sources such as solar and wind.

The Summit will showcase next generation technologies that can ramp up solar deployment at an affordable cost and will also be attended by ministers of 67 ISA member nations, global chief executives and multilateral institutions.

“High level dignitaries from the world of scientific research and development and a CEO’s conclave will set the tone of the deliberations on low cost, innovative and affordable solar technologies. Senior Government functionaries, heads of global corporations, financial and multilateral institutions, civil society, foundations and think-tanks will be present during the inaugural session," ISA said in a statement after a curtain raiser held on Monday for the World Solar Technology Summit.

This comes at a time when Germany is expected to join the ISA, Mint reported on Sunday. It assumes significance, considering that Germany is a member of the P5+1 grouping, comprising five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US, and is one of the earliest green economy proponents. Germany is looking at generating two-third of its electricity needs from solar and wind by 2030.

India has also been leveraging ISA, a multilateral organisation it co-founded with France, to tightening its economic squeeze on China, as Beijing attempts to co-opt countries into its One Belt One Road initiative.

Under the aegis of the ISA, India has also been trying to land solar power project contracts in its member countries. A case in point being Sri Lanka, where state-run NTPC Ltd plans to set up a solar power park. NTPC also plans to help Gambia and Malawi develop solar power parks and is eyeing project management consultancy contracts in Sudan, Mozambique, Egypt, Uganda, Rwanda and Niger. India’s largest power generation utility recently got such contracts in Mali and Togo.

India’ ambitious cross-border power grid plan—‘One Sun One World One Grid’— that would seek to transfer solar power generated in one region to feed the electricity demands of others, may also leverage the ISA, that has become India’s calling card on climate change.

“Today India is inspiring the entire world with its vision of one world, one sun and one grid, particularly in the field of solar energy," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his seventh Independence Day speech on Saturday.