COP30: more connectivity, varied supply key goals: ISA
BELEM, Brazil — Renewables and solar photovoltaic investments are receiving record-level amounts of investments but there are still barriers to growth and expansion of these technologies around the world according to the International Solar Alliance (ISA) director general.
One facet of this issue is that countries must adequately prepare for storage and transmission before implementing and deploying solar technology, Ashish Khanna, the ISA director general, told OPIS earlier this week.
“Solar can no longer be done together unless you have storage and transmission planning done together,” Ashish Khanna, the director general at the ISA, told OPIS. “So, countries who are not able to adequately plan for transmission grids and who are not able to have a wide storage strategy ranging from short, medium, and long-term durations storage options, those are the two biggest constraints on one side.”
However, another crucial barrier is that the solar energy industry is currently not “inclusive,” Khanna told OPIS.
According to a report published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), global investments in renewable energy technologies reached $807 billion in 2024. While global investment in solar photovoltaics reached a record $554 billion last year, China still makes up for 80% “of global investment in manufacturing facilities for solar, wind, battery and hydrogen technologies between 2018 and 2024.”
That is in stark contrast with Africa, which receives less than 1.5% of global investments in solar energy production, Khanna told OPIS.
The ISA — launched in 2015 by India and France in the same year the Paris Agreement was signed — includes 107 member countries whose governments have ratified the ISA’s framework agreement. The inter-governmental coalition aims to reduce costs and lower risks to deploy investments across the solar supply chain.
Despite being a solar powerhouse, China is currently not a member nor a signatory member of the ISA, meaning it has not signed onto the ISA. Khanna told OPIS that he openly welcomes the participation of the country, emphasizing that it has played a key role in bringing down the cost of solar energy and storage by around 90%.
“We feel it is in both China’s interest and the world’s interest to have supply chain diversification,” Khanna told OPIS. “That I think is one thing China must think through which are the other players that must come because they know that the world would like some bit of supply chain diversification.”
Cathy Yitong Li, global climate and energy policy lead at BirdLife International, told OPIS that governments should work together to deliver on the COP28 decision to transition away from fossil fuels in a just and swift manner.
“This requires bilateral cooperation, setting aside bilateral and geopolitical dynamics. I hope to see leaders like China, India, and more stakeholders join forces to scale up energy transition, including through a range of international initiatives,” Li said.
An email to the Chinese government’s information office about their position on the ISA went unanswered.
‘Sheer Economics’ Driving Solar Industry
Having started out his four-year term in March, Khanna said that his strategy is about moving from ambition to action and increasing regional interconnectivity.
Part of this includes establishing a global solar facility in the African continent. Khanna, who previously worked at the World Bank, said that the ISA’s solar facility in Africa would be tasked with creating a financial risk mitigation platform in order to promote and bring in private investments into the continent.
For middle income countries, Khanna wants to work on creating financial instruments targeted towards pension funds and sovereign wealth funds to invest more in the renewables sector.
A goal for the end of 2026 is to create local centers in 17 countries and connect these to what he likens to a “Silicon Valley of Solar” in India that would provide advisory solutions. Khanna aims for this platform to be fully operational next year.
Boosting regional transmission interconnections is a main goal for Khanna as part of the One Sun One World One Grid initiative to create a transnational network of electricity grids. This initiative was launched at COP26 in 2021 by the ISA, India, France, and the U.K.
“We want to identify the five or six most important inter-continental transmission corridors,” Khanna said, emphasizing that they should connect regions from East Asia to South Asia to Europe and to Africa.
When asked about the United States’ current energy policies under President Donald Trump, Khanna said that it’s no longer what one country does but “sheer economics” that’s driving the expansion of the solar industry.
According to IRENA, policy cutbacks like Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act “has reduced US renewable energy and energy storage outlook up to 2035 by 23%” and that “tax credits for wind and solar power projects have been scaled back considerably.”
“Despite policy cut-backs in the United States, and the shift to market-pricing in China, the global outlook for renewables remains positive,” IRENA said. “Progress is expected to continue despite strong inflationary pressures, a high interest rate environment, and debt sustainability issues, particularly in developing countries.”
Khanna highlighted that irrespective of how one country chooses to go about it, different countries are looking at what is their best economic solution for energy and energy access.
“It took 25 years to achieve the first 1000 GW of solar energy in the world. The next 1000 GW happened in two years and it will double up to 4000 GW in the next three or four years. Why? Because it’s the cheapest [source of energy] … It’s sheer economics that’s driving it. That’s what I see, irrespective of what one country or another country does. Each country will look at what is its best economic solution for energy because energy is essential for economic growth.”
–Reported by Humberto Juarez Rocha, hrocha@opisnet.com