International Solar Alliance moots a ‘Silicon Valley for solar’ in India

By the end of the year, the International Solar Alliance will set up 17 centres of excellence in as many countries, and going ahead, establish a Global Capability Centre in India, akin to a “Silicon Valley for solar”, Ashish Khanna, Director General, ISA, said at lecture here on Wednesday.

These 17 centres — Mr. Khanna did not disclose the names of the 17 countries — will provide testing, lab training, and a “startup ecosystem” in “Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-like” universities, and the capability centre would act as a “hub” connecting all these centres, Mr. Khanna said at an event organised by think tank The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), adding, “Those 17 could soon rise to 50 as several countries are looking to India to improve their human capability.”

The International Solar Alliance is a collaborative body set up by India and France, conceptualised on the sidelines of the climate Conference of Parties in 2015 in Paris. It is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana and has a membership of around 100 countries, with the primary goal of encouraging the adoption of solar energy globally, and a stated mission to “...unlock $1 trillion in solar investments by 2030 while reducing technology and financing costs”.

“Several countries are looking to engineers from India to supply the vital human capital necessary to implement solar projects. This includes digital tenders, operation and maintenance, and all the reskilling that is needed in the world,” Mr. Khanna said.

India has cumulatively installed about 119 GW (gigawatt) of solar capacity as of July 2025, according to official estimates. The Ministry for New and Renewable Energy in July said that India had achieved a “milestone” of sourcing 50% of its total electric power capacity of about 484 GW from non-fossil fuel sources. About 48% of India’s installed non-fossil power capacity is from solar energy. However, publicly available data show that the share of clean energy in the electricity actually supplied is below 30%, with nearly three-fourths still coming in from coal.

In the days ahead, India would be looking to strengthen its regional interconnectivity systems, including the One Sun, One World, One Grid (OSOWOG) system that will allow grids from different countries to supply electricity to each other. “Initially, it might sound incredulous to connect a 2,000-km long undersea cable between India and the United Arab Emirates but both these countries have different peak hours of solar usage (and therefore can profitably trade the solar power produced in each country),” Mr. Khanna said.