Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Pralhad Joshi (file photo)
| Photo Credit:
ANI
The Eighth Session of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) Assembly, which is scheduled for October 27-30 in New Delhi, will deliberate on critical issues including scaling solar power capacities and unlocking finance for projects.
The high-level ministerial gathering in India comes weeks ahead of the COP30 in Brazil’s Belem city, which will deliberate on critical issues such as stronger national climate plans with clearer investment pathways, mobilising finance for climate action in developing countries and incentivising sustainable and climate-aligned investment.
The ISA is also aggressively moving on promoting distributed renewable energy (solar power), which can help power homes in least developed countries with the lowest cost without investing on costly transmission and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
At a curtain-raiser event on the ISA session, Minister of New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi, said, “Owing to its clear vision and the consistent policies, India achieved its renewable energy targets five years ahead of the schedule, crossing the 50 per cent mark in overall installed electricity capacity from non-fossil resources.”
Today with around 125 gigawatt (GW) of solar capacity, India is the world’s third largest solar producer. This progress shows how national ambition can translate to meaningful change at the local level, Joshi, who is President of the ISA Assembly, added.
“It is because our success story is more than just numbers; it is about the people. We have seen first hand how decentralised solar transforms lives, bring light to rural homes, powers local health centres and gives new tools to our farmers. With PM Surya Ghar – Muft Bijli Yojana, more than 20 lakh households are benefiting from solar power,” he noted.
Powering up
The Minister also noted the advances under the PM-KUSUM scheme. The three components of the scheme target the installation of 10 GW of small solar plants; support 1.4 million off-grid solar pumps; and solarise 3.5 million grid-connected agricultural pumps.
MNRE Secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said “ISA’s role in experience sharing, in cross learning and in deploying solar both at scale as well as at a distributed level has been commendable and I compliment the partner countries who have collaborated within the framework of ISA for expansion of solar energy in their respective countries. We remain committed to continue this collaboration in future and in a variety of ways through both financial support as well as technical support which we have been extending to ISA.”
The Secretary emphasised that ISA is pursuing strategies to scale up distributed RE in other countries. “Some of the deployment experiments in Africa have shown encouraging results. Given India’s success in deploying solar energy at both utility and distributed levels, we are ready to partner with other countries in implementing similar initiatives,” he added.
Ashish Khanna, Director General of ISA, pointed out that global renewable energy is at an inflection point. It took oil 25 years to reach 1,000 GW. However, renewables doubled that in just two years.
“For the first time, renewable generation has surpassed fossil generation. This is a decisive moment for the Global South to lead. The coming decade must be defined not only by ambition but by tangible action. In this new energy landscape, ISA is emerging as a platform of aggregation—convening nations for collective action to drive large-scale solar deployment. Our vision is to accelerate this momentum by moving from commitments to concrete projects, from dialogue to delivery, and from potential to measurable impact—ensuring solar truly becomes the foundation of a sustainable and inclusive future,” he added.
Published on October 8, 2025