India-West Asia undersea cable allows large trade: ISA DG Ashish Khanna

The 2,000-kilometre-long undersea cable project between India and the United Arab Emirates, part of the One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG) initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is economically viable and could allow large-scale cross-border power trade, Ashish Khanna, director general of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), said on Wednesday. 

Speaking at the Twenty-fourth Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Khanna said the regional interconnection between India and West Asia could address energy security, reduce dependence on costly storage technologies, and facilitate trading of up to 15,000 megawatts of electricity. 

Khanna stressed that OSOWOG would help countries diversify their energy mix, particularly smaller economies that remain dependent on diesel. “We are going to help smaller countries that are still 80 per cent dependent on diesel get out of diesel by aggregating their procurement,” he said. 

ISA is promoting the creation of “digital twins” for power utilities to optimise energy use. “Early results are showing that it can actually reduce your renewable energy requirement by 20 per cent because that will optimally dispatch the power generated on the rooftop and in the fields,” he said.

 

Khanna also flagged financing constraints for clean energy in developing nations. “Of the $2.2 trillion that was spent last year on clean technology, less than 15% came to developing countries, and less than 2% came to Africa. One of the main reasons is the international private sector still perceives a relatively high risk of investing in developing countries,” he said.

 

To address this, ISA has set up a global solar facility in GIFT City in Gujarat, which will design financial innovation structures for each continent, starting with Africa.

 

“An African solar facility starting with $200 million is giving guarantee for private sector to start investing in distributed renewable energy projects. In Nigeria, the Sovereign Investment Authority is partnering with us, leveraging our funds 30 to 40 times,” Khanna said.