NEW DELHI — India has been elected President of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) for a third consecutive term, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi said on Tuesday after attending the Bharat Renewable Energy Summit and Expo 2026 in New Delhi, IANS reported. The election took place at the ninth session of the ISA Assembly — the alliance's highest decision-making body — held alongside the summit, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated a day earlier, on November 2.
Source: IANS via NewKerala
France, which co-founded the alliance with India, retained the Vice-President position, The Hindu BusinessLine reported. Joshi said the discussions at the event would reinforce a clear priority of moving 'from solar commitments to investments, from partnerships to projects, and from ambition to impact', and reaffirmed India's commitment to advancing international solar cooperation and the equitable distribution of its benefits, guided by the vision of 'Power to Empower' and the principle of 'One Sun, One World, One Grid'.
Source: The Hindu BusinessLine
The money: Africa facility and a $1 billion target
ISA Director General Ashish Khanna told BusinessLine: 'We aim to deploy around 3 GW of RE capacities in member countries, and also aim to mobilise around $1 billion in the next five years.' Joshi highlighted the $200 million Africa Solar Facility as an important step towards unlocking investment in Africa's distributed renewable energy sector; India's commitment to the facility is around Rs 225 crore (roughly $25 million), aimed at making affordable solar energy accessible to underserved communities. He also pointed to the $300 million Nigeria Distributed Renewable Energy Fund as a model that can be scaled up across the continent.
Khanna said most member countries are grappling with higher energy costs, and that the case for solar is strongest where diesel-based power is expensive: average utility tariffs in small island countries are almost Rs 25-30 per unit because of the price of diesel and oil, he said, while solar and storage costs as low as Rs 3-4 in India could be around Rs 10 there and still be one-third of what those countries spend now. The alliance's main focus, he said, is enabling private-sector investment through the right policy and instruments, and it is advancing aggregated solar and storage opportunities beginning with Mauritius as a scalable model for Small Island Developing States. ISA-supported initiatives in Fiji, Madagascar, Comoros and Seychelles have used solar power for healthcare facilities and schools, clean drinking water and agricultural cold storage, Joshi noted.
From Paris 2015 to 130 countries
The ISA was established by India and France together in 2015, on the sidelines of the Paris climate conference, and has since grown into a platform of 130 signatory and member countries, particularly for the Global South. Joshi also cited India's own experience: the PM-KUSUM initiative has empowered 3 million farmers (30 lakh farmers) through solar-powered agriculture that cuts irrigation costs and creates additional income, a model the ISA works to adapt across member countries, particularly in Africa. He listed new institutions meant to deepen that work — 17 Solar Technology Application Resource Centres, the Global Capability Centre-SHINE (Strategic Hub for Innovation and Execution) and an AI-enabled ISA Academy — with a focus on skills and emerging technologies to accelerate solar deployment.
What happens next: under India's third term, the alliance says its work will be judged on delivery — deploying the targeted 3 GW, mobilising the $1 billion and scaling funds such as the Africa Solar Facility and the Nigeria fund — as member countries seek cheaper power than diesel-based generation.