NEW DELHI: India’s nominee and current director general of TERI, Ajay Mathur, was on Monday elected as new chief of International Solar Alliance (ISA) – an inter-governmental body, set up in 2015 as a joint initiative of India and France to accelerate use of safe, sustainable, and affordable solar energy for all.
A coalition of 73 member countries, ISA, aims to mobilize over USD 1 trillion of investment into solar projects by 2030 through policy and regulatory support, capacity building, and by overcoming perceived investment barriers.
“This is a great honour for me, and I look forward to ISA enabling global solarization,” Mathur told TOI after his election at the first special assembly of the Alliance, held virtually. He will replace the incumbent Upendra Tripathy as new director general of this global body on March 15.
Speaking at the ISA’s special assembly, Mathur, said, “The ISA has a vital role to help establish the infrastructure and ecosystem for a zero-carbon emission future. With strong foundations already in place, my immediate focus is to identify and mobilize the opportunities and capital to accelerate our solarization goals in the interim and long-term.”
Before joining as director general of the new Delhi-based energy and environment thinktank, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Mathur had headed India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and served with the Green Climate Fund.
Mathur will head the global body at a time when the ISA has recently decided to open its membership to all UN member countries. Its headquarters is located in Gurgaon, Haryana.
Though the ISA was initially conceived as a coalition of only solar-resource-rich countries (which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn) to address their special energy needs, its extent has now expanded to cover all UN member countries.