The First World Solar Technology Summit

Published: 24th Aug, 2020

Context

The First World Solar Technology Summit will be organized by International Solar Alliance, ISA on a virtual platform on 8th of September. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the inaugural address of the First World Solar Technology Summit.

About

The World Solar Technology Summit is an attempt to bring together scientists, engineers and member states to sit down together and think about what the challenges are in realising the dream of making energy affordable and abundant
The objective of the event is to bring the spotlight on state-of-the-art technologies as well as next-generation technologies which will provide impetus to the efforts towards harnessing solar energy more efficiently.
It will help provide a multilateral connect when global trade is increasingly being viewed through the bilateral prism.
Discussion topics include-
- PV technology development and its future
- recent advances – including conversion efficiency improvements and declining costs – in PV modules and storage
- disruptive solar technologies for grid application – ground-mounted, floating or on residential and commercial rooftops
- solar beyond the power sector

ISA Journal on Solar Energy

ISA would also be launching the ISA Journal on Solar Energy that would help authors from across the globe to publish their articles on solar energy, during the event.

International Solar Alliance

Officially announced during the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, the ISA is a partnership of solar resource-rich countries.
Countries located between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, the two regions that receive the most amount of sunlight, are mostly the members of ISA.
Currently, 121 countries have agreed to be members of ISA. Most of these are countries with a large participation from Africa, South-east Asia, and Europe.
Pakistan and China are not a members of the ISA.
It is headquartered in Gurugram.
The ISA aims to reduce the cost of solar technology and finance to facilitate the deployment of more than 1 TW of solar generation capacity and mobilize more than $1 trillion (Rs74.6 lakh crore) of solar power investment by 2030 in its member countries.
It's only been a year and a half since ISA started working in a full-fledged way. Projects worth 1.4 billion has already been tied up and is at different stages of construction.

Progress so far:

Clean energy projects now account for more than a fifth of India’s installed power generation capacity.
India has 34.6 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, and aims to have 100GW by 2022.

One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG)

In contrast to ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, the Indian Government is deliberating with the idea of One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG) which has quite an ambitious objective and focuses on flow of green energy across nations through one grid.
If the Government is to develop this concept seriously, then it will require require reforms in the regulatory framework governing the electricity sector.
On the international landscape, the concept of OSOWOG intends to tap the global solar energy potential for the benefit of all nations and requires an international electricity grid to allow inter-country free flow of power.
To achieve this, the OSOWOG will require certain changes in the regulatory framework especially in two areas –
- grid security for the Indian grid
- development of appropriate international energy exchange
The grid has to be a "smart grid" in order to obtain highest efficiencies given the constraints of transmission of solar power, i.e. transmission losses.

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The First World Solar Technology Summit

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CURRENT AFFAIRS FOR UPSC IAS

The First World Solar Technology Summit

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