“SEIA has always been a big tent—it advocates for residential solar, utility-scale solar and we’re always our strongest when we go into an elected official’s office with a unified voice and a consistent voice, across both the industry and the membership itself,” he says.
The move has also been applauded by members of CCSA. It is worth noting that the merger was approved by the boards of directors of both trade associations and John Bernhardt, vice president of policy and market strategy at commercial solar developer Pivot Energy, tells PV Tech Premium that there is “a lot of natural overlap” between the issues that affect the US solar industry as a whole and community solar specifically.
“Pivot has been a member of both trade associations independently for a handful of years,” Bernhardt adds. “We’ve independently seen their value, and what I think is interesting about this merger is these organisations bring a lot of nice complements.”
The complementary nature of the merger is a topic that both Brandt and Bernhardt mention in our conversations; Brandt notes that the deal will help the new, bigger SEIA “consolidate and strengthen the voice that advocates for solar topics.”
“That’s not always possible, but when you have two organisations advocating for the same thing, most of the time, the clarity is helpful,” he adds. “I’m personally very happy to see that the memberships of both organisations voted to do this.”
Brandt notes that the idea of “strengthening the voice” of US solar is an important component here.
Source link
