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One Sun One World One Grid (OSWOG)
India has a strong commitment to reversing global climate change. In 2018, Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, had floated the idea of cross-border solar connectivity. ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ (OSOWOG) initiative is envisioned to set up a framework for facilitating global cooperation in this regard aiming at building a worldwide ecosystem of interconnected renewable energy resources that can be seamlessly shared. The idea of this is simple – the sun is always available in some parts of the world where its light can be converted into Renewable Energy and used by other countries
India has already initiated the International Solar Alliance (ISA) which aims to deploy over 1,000 GW of solar generation capacity globally and mobilise investment of over USD 1 trillion by 2030. The ISA, a treaty-based inter-governmental organization headquartered in Gurgaon and was established following the Paris Declaration as an alliance dedicated to the promotion of solar energy among its member countries. As ISA expands to reach its scope, the initiation of ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ (OSOWOG) represents another initiative by India for transformational, sustainable and lower-cost renewable energy for sustainable development. The Union Ministry of New and Renewable energy (MNRE), through this initiative, plans to build global consensus about sharing solar resources among more than 140 countries of Middle East-South Asia-South East Asia
As a first step to implement the OSOWOG initiative, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed among the ISA, the Government of India, and the World Bank at the First World Solar Technology Summit in the year 2020. As per the MOU, the ISA will act as the Nodal Agency for all activities, including implementation of the OSOWOG study for developing a long-term vision, implementation plan, road map and institutional framework for implementing the initiative. The MNRE has formed a global consortium with EDF (Électricité de France), AETS France and TERI (The Energy Resources Institute) for implementation of this study for evaluating the feasibility and implementation of the global OSOWOG project. Sustainable Partnership for Rooftop Solar Acceleration in Bharat (SUPRABHA), a technical assistance programme of the World Bank through SBI, will fund this study. This partnership heralds the creation of a multi-sectoral and global collaboration to build an ecosystem of interconnected renewable energy resources.
The OSOWOG initiative is set to be pursued in three phases – in the first Phase, the Indian Grid interconnects with the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia grids to share solar and other renewable energy resources for meeting electricity needs including during peak demand. It is then interconnected with the African power pools in the second Phase and the third phase would vie for global interconnection of the power transmission grid to achieve the One Sun One World One Grid’s vision.
ISA plans to launch the World Solar Bank (WSB) at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November 2021 in attempt to secure India’s leadership in the climate arena. The World Solar Bank (WSB) headquartered in India will be designed to help set up solar projects in member countries and aims to disperse $500 billion over 10 years. The setting up of WSB may require a total equity capital of $10 billion and a paid-up capital of USD 2 billion. This can be leveraged with blended financing and technology collaboration.
In January 2019, the Ministry of Power in India had issued the guidelines for import and export of electricity and power trading with neighbouring countries. Cross-border trade of power between India and the neighbouring countries will be allowed through mutual agreements between Indian entities and entities of the neighbouring countries. For cross-border transmission the need is to solve the issues of siting of projects, determination of tariffs, deployment of technologies, ensuring cross-border security and investments. With India’s leadership position in Renewable Energy Sources, its goal is to be the Energy leader for the world. This also opens larger avenues for trade. Electricity trade in South Asian could grow up to 60GW through 2045.