What will it take for the world to go solar?

The sun stands to play a major role in the world’s shift away from climate-warming fossil fuels.

In fact, global investments in solar energy hit a whopping $300 billion in 2022—but those dollars didn’t flow in an equitable way.

That’s according to the International Solar Alliance (ISA), an intergovernmental organization headquartered in India that started in 2015 as part of a global effort to fulfill the Paris Agreement’s pledges. Today, the ISA has about 120 signatory countries, including the US, as it works to boost solar adoption worldwide, particularly in the Global South.

In October, the ISA announced some $35 million in funding for solar projects, including mini-grids and rooftop installations, primarily in Africa, the Associated Press reported.

Tech Brew recently caught up with Ajay Mathur, director general of the ISA. Mathur previously served as director general of the Energy and Resources Institute and as a member of the Prime Minister of India’s Council on Climate Change. He served as co-chair of the global Energy Transitions Commission and the Clean Cooling Initiatives of the One Planet Summit; led the Indian Bureau of Energy Efficiency; was a climate change negotiator at the Paris climate negotiations; and was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about the International Solar Alliance and what your primary focus is.

The International Solar Alliance is a grouping of 120 countries which aims at enhancing solarization across the world. And this means solar policies, this means money for solar, this means developing human capacity, changing rules and regulations—whatever it takes to bring solar energy into the energy mix of countries.

It’s about comparing best practices. It is about providing training. It’s about enabling money to flow—the entire gamut of activities that it takes to make solar the energy source of choice.

How would you characterize the landscape in terms of solar adoption around the world right now?

There’s one number which says this very well: Last year, something like $300 billion was invested in solar globally. This is great; it compares with the peak of investment in fossil fuels two decades ago. However, 74% of this investment went to OECD countries and China. The rest of the world got the remaining; all of Africa got 3% of the investment.

So the key issue is, geographically, there is a problem. The second thing is that most of the investment that has occurred has occurred for large solar farms…And the third is, there’s an adequate amount of capacity, but 90-some percent of this capacity is concentrated in one country: China. And that creates problems of logistics, because there are two months of the year when there are no solar panels available in all of Africa. This creates a problem. And as you are looking at a future where the solar demand may be three times [higher] by 2030…then you’re looking at large-scale problems in distributing solar.

So these are the three kinds of challenges that solar faces: that of geographical imbalance, that of sectoral imbalance, and that of manufacturing imbalance.

How is your organization trying to advocate for solar adoption and overcome some of these obstacles?

The first is money. As far as money is concerned, we know that a very large amount of money is available with the private sector—the pension funds, the private-sector investors. So there is not a shortage of money. But…many of these companies do not invest in developing countries because the risks are seen as being much higher—risks of foreign currency, risks of repayment, and so on.

What we also found is that repayment was not really a risk, because the non-repayment was hardly 2% in all of Africa. In this country, in the US, it’s about 6%. So how do you address the perception gap? We do it by creating a guarantee mechanism. These investors who go into Africa can buy these guarantees. And when they do it and find that everything goes well, they don’t need to buy the guarantees…But then the second thing is, where are the products going to come from? So we do searches in various geographies…to look at startups in the solar area. These are guys who have got technologies, who have got business models. And now what we’re talking about is upscaling them…As far as the issue of the imbalance of large versus small is concerned, we are focusing on the small.

This guarantee facility, for example, that we have created is for small-scale [projects] in Africa. We are focusing on the creation of capacity of the people, of institutions, who can then absorb this. Because if you do solar projects in Africa, where are the electricians going to come from? Where are the guys who are going to design this come from? You need local capacity.

And the third is, as far as manufacturing is concerned, we would very much like to see instead of imported solar panels, countries import solar cells and make solar panels in their own country…Cells is a difficult thing because when you make solar cells, they’re…more expensive than those that are available in the market. And therefore you need incentives, like the IRA in the US.

Could you talk about the solar festival you’re organizing and what you hope to achieve with it?

The solar festival is around four communities. It’s around the private sector…The second is about women…How do we ensure that not only are women there, but they are in all levels of positions?...What we want to do is to understand and therefore bring in women as both producers and as users of solar energy.

The third is communities. Communities finally have autonomy on energy availability and cost-effective electricity…This means that communities need to start talking to each other to figure out what are the kinds of benefits they’re getting. These benefits could be greater employment. These benefits could be the fact that they have greater autonomy, they get control over when and how they get their electricity. This could be about the fact that their local environment is cleaner than what it was before…The fourth is that as far as public policies are considered, as far as government is concerned, we are seeing that some countries have been a lot more effective, have learned, and have changed rules periodically in order to move ahead. So governments should talk to each other. So those are the conversations that we hope will happen there. What we hope is that this creates an environment for all these communities to see how solar is bringing benefits to them.

If I’m a decision-maker in the transportation sector, how can I think about contributing to this broader effort to increase solar adoption?

Two things: One is, enable guys to make a living out of getting electricity from solar and charging vehicles. The second and more important is making many countries of the world start focusing on the kinds of vehicles that people can afford: two-wheelers rather than cars…And also develop a solar infrastructure for charging.

Any closing thoughts?

Long story short, solar makes great sense for you and for me. But depending on the countries, depending on the states, the way in which we implement it changes.