Brics built the new solar economy. Now it must build the systems to scale it.

Last year, 80% of all new generation capacity added anywhere in the world was renewable. 80% of that was solar. And 80% of that new solar was built in Brics countries.  Three datasets define that the centre of gravity of energy transition has moved to Brics,  and Brics now have the opportunity to influence the energy transition of the developing world to an electrostate that is largely based on solar, storage and flexible grids. 

India chairs Brics this year – a grouping of 49.5% of the world’s population, 40% of global GDP and 26% of world trade. In 2023, holding the G20 presidency, India brought developing and developed countries to agreement in the same room, had the New Delhi  Declaration adopted and also brought the African Union in as a permanent member. The voice of the Global South was not merely heard that year, it was seated at the global high table. 

But scale is only one half of the answer. The other half is what gets built after the scale arrives. 

And here is what a decade of conviction has bought us at home. India today stands at 164 GW of solar. In June 2025, non-fossil sources crossed 50% of our installed electricity capacity, five years ahead of target. Under PM-KUSUM, 27 lakh pumps have been installed so that a farmer got reliable daytime power instead of waiting for supply at night and through PM-Surya Ghar, 50 lakh households have rooftop solar, with 19 lakh of them  not having to pay anything for their electricity consumption. 

Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made an affordable, inclusive and just energy  transition for the Global South the centre of what India argues for globally. This is completely aligned with this year’s theme of Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and  Sustainability for the Brics Summit with India as the chair. 

So, what must follow the scale? Six things, and none of them are optional. 

Digitalisation first. A grid that once tracked few hundred assets must now track millions – rooftops, pumps, mini grids, all of it sitting alongside conventional plants. A shared blueprint for distribution level information technology systems and AI applications based on real-time monitoring, digitised grids and AI-based load forecasting. The resilience of a digitised grid is essential for sustainability of the energy network. 

Then storage. Solar becomes round-the-clock power only when it is stored. The world  added 108 GW of batteries last year, 20.5 GW of it behind the meter. What the world needs now through Brics is innovation on new technically and commercially viable storage technologies, patient capital, regulations for incentivising storage at distribution  system and behind the meter, and rules on safety, recycling and second-life use – to be written before the first large wave of retirements, not after. 

Resilience is the third, and the least discussed. Solar has stopped being only about climate  mitigation as solar irrigation and cold storage provide resilient livelihoods to farmers, agrivoltaics allows food security and energy security to co-exist and health care and school solarisation allows women and young to have access to health care and job enhancing skills. 

Interconnection is fourth: One Sun One World One Grid corridors would allow regional  trading across Asia to Africa and Europe, requiring harmonisation of standards, finalising energy trading mechanisms, and innovative ways of financing. 

Local value addition through manufacturing is fifth. Countries across the world are keen to have a balance of energy sovereignty, energy transition and industrial policy by maximising local value addition of clean energy industries and generating jobs. That often  implies pooling demand, diversified supply chains, aligning testing and certification, and  cooperating on critical minerals. 

Finance decides the other five. Developing and emerging economies took less than 15% of global clean energy investment in 2025. The same plant, built to the same specification, costs almost double in Africa and Small Island Developing States than in Brics. Sunlight is  free everywhere. Public money must therefore be spent on enabling private money through use of innovative financing structures like first-loss support, junior equity, local currency risk mitigation. 

Much of the mandate is already written. The Brics Guiding Principles on Smart Grids and Energy Storage, adopted under India’s Chairship recognise solar energy and storage as a way to improve affordability, reliability and access. The technology exists. What is missing is a platform for scaling. 

The International Solar Alliance was built to be that platform. More than 129 countries are now behind it, and solutions have worked across global, regional and country-specific contexts over advocating a single template. Shared digital infrastructure and AI applications is what the Global AI Mission on Energy exists to build. The Africa Solar Facility  provides patient capital to reduce perceived risk and the ISA-SIDS Platform for island nations already aggregate demand for countries that could not do it alone. On storage,  ISA is building integrated storage strategy for countries while the SUNRISE platform provided the business models for circularity. And Solarising Africa strategy shows the whole of it at continental scale – distributed renewables, solarised agriculture, e-mobility and utility-scale solar taken as one pathway instead of four separate programmes. These models can be steered by Brics members for the wider Global South. 

The solar, grids, storage systems and factories being designed today will be run, and then rebuilt, by engineers and entrepreneurs who are still in university. India’s Chairship has put youth engagement at the centre of its agenda for that reason. Skills are not a side  programme to energy security. They are how it gets renewed. 

We also recognise that one size will not fit all. The right mix of technology, financing and grid design changes from country to country. Brics has provided a template for broader eco system creation for clean energy-led transition. ISA is ready for deepening partnership with Brics to take it to the world.

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