Yesterday, EU Commission Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans participated in the opening of the fourth Assembly of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) in New Delhi. The ISA is a coalition of solar-resource-rich countries focused on increasing the use and quality of solar energy.
Timmermans announced that the EU will launch a €1 million programme to strengthen cooperation with ISA, to support academic exchanges, research and innovation and to enable exchange of best practices between the EU and ISA on how to mobilise finance for solar energy deployment.
Timmermans said: “I believe the International Solar Alliance can make a huge contribution to create opportunity, globally, to bring energy to people who can’t even dream of having energy today, to change people’s lives. Solar power is arguably one of the most democratically accessible power sources humanity has ever had, because you could bring it to the most remote parts of the planet, and you can make it controllable and accessible to small communities. So this is an opportunity we should not miss.”
The full speech is available here. And a press release is available here.