23 heads of state to attend international Solar Summit on Sunday
New Delhi: Heads of the states from 23 nations including France, Australia and Sri Lanka will attend the first International Solar Alliance Summit on March 11 here.
The event is being co-hosted by India and France to promote solar energy.
“Besides 23 heads of states senior country representatives including deputy prime ministers and energy ministries have confirmed their participation so far in the day lone Ist ISA Summit on March 11, 2018,” an official said.
He said several global bankers have confirmed their participation at the event including Werner Hoyer, President & Chairman, European Investment Bank, K V Kamath, President, BRICS Development Bank, Nandita Parshad, Managing Director, Energy & Natural Resources, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Banbang Susantono, Vice President, ASIAN Development Bank.
President Ram Nath Kovind will co-host the summit with French President Emmanuel Macron. It will focus on various aspects of promoting solar energy in 121 countries associated with International Solar Alliance (ISA) like credit mechanism, crowd funding and sharing of technology breakthroughs.
The summit will be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan’s Cultural Centre.
ISA is a treaty-based international body for promotion of solar energy in alliance with 121 countries, which are fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
The Summit will discuss various projects being prepared by different countries in areas including rural electrification, off grid solar, water supply and irrigation.
India has set an ambitious target of having 100 GW of solar energy capacities by 2022. It is close to achieving 20 GW in the current fiscal itself and plans to auction 30 GW solar projects each in 2018-19 and 2019-20.