India UK ‘Green Grid’ Initiative — A Step Forward Towards Clean Energy

During the COP26 Summit held in Glasgow, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have launched a ‘green grids’ initiative — the One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG) project- aimed at connecting energy grids across countries to enable a faster transition to the use of renewable energy.

One Sun One World One Grid Project

One Sun One World One Grid idea was first proposed by India at the International Solar Alliance in 2018 to allow countries with surplus renewable energy to send energy to energy-deficient countries.

The Indian PM said, “If the world has to move to a clean and green future, these interconnected transnational grids are going to be critical solutions.”

A transnational grid would enable countries to source solar power from regions where it is daytime to meet their green energy needs even when their own installed solar capacity is not generating energy.

OSOWOG is also aimed at addressing the issue of the high cost of energy storage. The high cost of energy storage is a key challenge to boosting the use of renewable energy and the OSOWOG initiative is a possible solution for driving down the need for storage, which in effect will reduce the costs of the energy transition.

Advantages of the ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ Initiative

➠ A large amount of energy is only accessible during the daytime and is weather-dependent. Therefore, the ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ will contribute to the creation of a global grid that allows renewable energy to be sent anywhere, at any point in time.

➠ It will also help in the reduction of storage requirements.

➠ The OSOWOG effort will help to cut carbon emissions and save money on electricity.

➠ It will open up new channels of communication between regions and nations.

Challenges to the OSOWOG Project

The transmission of power across vast distances would require large capital investment to set up long transmission lines. It has been pointed out that transmission across large distances can potentially be very expensive. Therefore, the first step of OSWOG would be solar power transfer between neighboring countries. For example, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Nepal already share transmission capacity for energy transfer across borders which can be expanded further and utilized for the transfer of solar power between these countries.

The International Solar Alliance has requested a study of the feasibility of the OSOWOG project which will evaluate on a country-by-country basis, examining projected power demand and supply and the renewable energy resource potential.