In-person trade events Intersolar North America (ISNA) and Energy Storage North America (ESNA), due to take place this summer, have been postponed until January 2022.
The conferences, which were due to take place at a joint event between 14 and 16 July this year, have been replaced by a digital webinar series after organisers deemed it “impossible to hold in person in 2021” due to the public health risks posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a statement from ISNA and ESNA.
Try Premium for just $1
- Full premium access for the first month at only $1
- Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled
- Cancel anytime during the trial period
Premium Benefits
- Expert industry analysis and interviews
- Digital access to PV Tech Power journal
- Exclusive event discounts
Or get the full Premium subscription right away
Or continue reading this article for free
A virtual summit will be held this July in lieu of an in-person conference series, while the in-person event has been pushed back by six months, and will now take place between 13 and 15 January 2022 at the Convention Center in Long Beach, California.
Wes Doane, ESNA and ISNA’s event director, said that attendees’ safety “must take precedence over our desire to organize an in-person event this year”.
“A digital summit may not be what we had originally envisioned,” Doane added, “but it is a safe, effective, and valuable connection point that will continue our industry’s momentum.”
The two-day virtual event will include 12 sessions focusing on utility-scale and customer-sited applications and successes within the US solar and energy storage sectors, with passes for digital series costing US$299.
It will also feature keynote speeches from Maria Pope, president and CEO of energy company Portland General Electric, electricity and gas group Enel’s chief innovability officer Ernesto Ciorra, and Carla Peterman, senior VP of strategy at Southern California Edison.
The 2021 event, which was meant to take place last January, was already moved back by six months in August 2020 due to ongoing uncertainty around travel restrictions in the US and bans on large gatherings.
The change of plan comes just over a month after Intersolar Europe was postponed until late July this year due to ongoing COVID-19 travel complications. The European event was cancelled altogether in March 2020 as the pandemic intensified across the continent.
