Glasgow/New Delhi: Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Thursday addressed a special side event organised by the International Solar Alliance (ISA) in partnership with the UK under the theme Green Grids Initiative-One Sun One World One Grid at the COP26 in Glasgow, and said the scale of the OSOWOG project could very well make it the next biggest modern engineering marvel.
Yadav is leading the Indian delegation at the COP26 in Glasgow,
In his keynote speech at the special event, Yadav exhorted the global community to make solar power the priority in energy deployment. Grid interconnection will play a key role in revamping regional cooperation and transition to the low carbon power system.
In this regard, the Minister emphasised investment in grid expansion and modernisation with emphasis on solar which will enable transition in the global energy value change.
The Minister tweeted in his speech: “Reiterated PM Shri @narendramodi Ji’s vision and emphasis that we must return to the Sun to save the Earth. As the world progresses to achieve new heights economically & socially, solar energy will power the transition.
“Stated that sustainable development and climate change mitigation is at the heart of the Green Grids Initiative – launched by PM Shri @narendramodi at COP26 and that the scale of the project could very well make it the next biggest modern engineering marvel.”
Heads of delegation of many countries including Jean Yes Le Adrian – the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs; Jennifer Granholm – the US Secretary of Energy; Dr Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar- Minister of Climate Change of Nigeria; Kwasi Kwarteng – the UK Secretary of State at Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; Dr Ajay Mathur-Director General of ISA, also spoke on the occasion. The recorded speech of the PM of Samoa Fiame Naomi Matafa was played at the event.
All the speakers wholeheartedly supported the GGI-OSOWOG initiative announced jointly by Prime Minister Modi and UK Prime Minister Johnson at COP-26 and suggested that ISA should play a leading role to facilitate this by supporting regional power pools, where a group of countries create an interconnected grid to facilitate electricity trade-and connect various regional pools to eventually form a global grid.
As it has been conceived, GGI-OSOWOG will bring more technical, financial and research cooperation to help facilitate cross-border renewable energy transfer projects, which will provide OSOWOG with its global infrastructure.
The World Bank Vice President for Infrastructure, Ricardo Puliti, pledged World Bank financial Support for the OSOWOG projects in the event.
About the initiative:
ISA was launched by the Prime Minister of India and the President of France on the sidelines of COP-21 in 2015 in Paris, France. And, three years ago, at the First Assembly of the International Solar Alliance in October 2018, the idea for connecting the global solar resource through the vision ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ was seeded.
In the run-up to COP-26, the UK and India joined hands and merged the Green Grids Initiative and One Sun One World One Grid into GGI-OSOWOG as part of bilateral cooperation during the bilateral UK-India Virtual Summit in May 2021. Following that, both countries jointly launched a global ‘Green Grids Initiative – One Sun One World One Grid’ (GGI-OSOWOG), at the COP26 in Glasgow.
The proposal for merging these initiatives was earlier presented at the ISA General Assembly on October 20, 2021, and endorsed by all ISA member countries.
