Capacity building at appropriate time is important, says ISA's Ajay Mathur

International Solar Alliance (ISA): We don't want to land in the same situation as that of fossil fuels when it comes to waste, said Mathur

India has taken a leadership role in promoting solar energy globally through the International Solar Alliance (ISA). In an interview with Jyoti Mukul, Ajay Mathur, the new director general at ISA, shares his plans to build capacity and outreach in the solar sector through the alliance. Edited Excerpts:

What would be your priority areas for ISA?

We need to accelerate solarisation in all the countries. However, different countries have different capacities and amount of experience. We need to support projects particularly in the least developed and small developing island countries so there is the power of demonstration and the possibility that through those demonstrations there is an impact on policy and on the bankability of projects. Second, if you want to work on projects, you need people. Here there is a challenge for capacity building because you don’t want to create capacity when there are no assets. At the same time, you cannot have assets without creating capacity; so capacity building at the appropriate time for appropriate action. It could be for policy making, banks, regulators, project designers or people who implement the project. At the right time, the right capacity is made available and then you create more assets.

The third is that in solar we are seeing a lot of movement every day. What is important is that we capture what happens on a daily basis. I would want ISA to capture this through annual reports on technology, investment, markets and this is useful not only for all the developing countries, but also for all our member states. Those are the three things I would want to start. Let me say advocacy and outreach among all member states.

But this agenda cannot be achieved by one organisation, so how would you involve governments?

The country has to take ownership. Within each country there are national focal points (NFP), so any action we take will be through NFPs. We will need to work together.

How do you build capacity for financing?

The key issue is to ensure that we find resources at affordable rates. There are challenges. We need bankable projects, and then, three kinds of financing. One for the project itself, risk mitigation instruments that you need to make the project happen which could also be to push policies, payment guarantee mechanism, power purchase agreements whatever that is needed to make an investor comfortable, and third, the resources that are needed to create the ecosystem whether it is writing the projects and ensuring we are able to run multiple projects. Financiers for each of the buckets are different. The goal of ISA is to ensure bankable projects on one side and enable all kinds of bankers, financiers on the other side. Over the longer term, it may morph into a solar bank.

What is the status of solar bank?

There is an idea for enabling financing which is being worked out. We need to bring together platforms. Creation of a bank is a long-term process. We need to put together projects on one end and financiers on the other end. We would like the platforms to start working this year itself.

Are there new countries joining ISA? Will China be a member, considering it is an important player in the solar space?

Till some time ago, membership of ISA was limited to countries between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. but recently it has been opened up. We are now looking at membership beyond this. We will keep on enlarging this. Sweden has already joined. Germany and Denmark are in the process of ratification. We are in the process of working out ratification for The Netherlands. We will be pushing more Asian countries to join, too. We would like all countries of the world to be members of ISA.

Indian PSUs had joined ISA as partners. Is there a plan to bring international private energy companies, too?

We would like public and private companies across the world to work with us. They are a very important source, both of action and experience for us. For instance, if our countries want solar battery systems available off the shelf, we have to talk to companies. If we want to look at how to make solar part of the electricity expansion of countries, we need a forum of electricity distribution companies across the world. It is important to have dedicated fora for these kinds of things, including those of companies. We are in discussions with companies.

How do you plant to address the issue of waste generated by solar projects?

We don’t want to land in the same situation as that of fossil fuels when it comes to waste. This means that collecting solar waste, once projects have reached the end of life and then recycling them is important. We are working on the process of making countries start working on it early on.

What would be the rules of engagement on how latest is technology in ISA monitored projects?

We will capture the information on technology on an annual basis. There are two kinds of concerns here. One, if it is a quick depreciation of the solar production then it is pointless and if it is very expensive then it could become a stranded asset as more efficient and cheaper technologies are available. But this is an evolving field. The tariff is a political issue which needs to be addressed. For countries, we need to ensure that there is complete understanding of what is the technology that a manufacturer is willing to guarantee? Solar is capital cost-based so what is the kind of impact it has on the longer term cost of electricity. Each country will make its own assessment and will provide information and they will see what makes sense for them.