How the SEIA-CCSA merger could ‘strengthen the voice’ of US solar advocacy

“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.”

‘Strengthening the voice’ of US solar

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. He explains that, often, working with the legislative bodies—both on the state and federal level—required to pass policy can become complicated if there are too many industry advocates in the room, pushing for, ultimately, very similar goals.

“It’s about how we talk to the people who are actually going to create and craft the policies,” he explains. “Instead of having two organisations saying maybe the same thing, but differently—or at least having two different people say it—is dilutive of the strength of the work, when both organisations have creative relationships and strengths.

“It’s [about] both strengthening the voice that’s coming out of one big organisation, but also the knowledge that SEIA gains from CCSA joining the organisation.”

While Brandt did not name cases in which advocacy has been impeded by having too many voices in a discussion, it is clear that the relationship between the US solar industry and policy, and by extension policymakers, has a significant impact on the deployment of new solar projects. This is true on both the federal level—the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) and tariff landscape are all significant—and the state level, where different states’ approaches to balcony solar, in particular, have created a complex policy picture for the plug-in solar sector.

“We have a deep-seated commitment to federalism here, which means there’s a real patchwork framework for energy policy in this country, says Bernhardt. “You have things happening on the state level, which is very patchwork in its own right and has a lot of depth for individual states … CCSA can really amplify and strengthen that [understanding].”

Will the merger dilute CCSA’s work?

While a streamlining of SEIA’s advocacy work would be a benefit, there is a concern that, for the community solar sector in particular, the effectiveness of its advocacy could be diminished as its trade organisation is reduced from an independent body to a smaller part of a larger whole; Bernhardt says that in the community solar sector, “people had some questions about whether the focus on our aspect of the industry is going to get lost in the noise.”

Brandt expressed confidence that the issues affecting community solar would not be swept aside in the new organisation, not least because community solar is, in his opinion, a “vital part” of the US solar industry. Bernhardt adds in our conversation that in ten years, the operational capacity of community solar in the US has increased from around 150MW to over 10GW, exceptional growth for a sector that can be thought of as a smaller part of the broader solar industry.

“The way that that merger is ultimately structured, with the distributed power project having a bit of an initiative within SEIA to facilitate the transition, that gave folks at Pivot a lot of comfort that this is going to be a really meaningful part of SEIA’s advocacy,” adds Bernhardt, praising the new ‘Distributed Power’ working group that will take responsibility for community solar within the new-look SEIA.

Perhaps most significantly, Brandt suggests that this merger is different in tone and intention to corporate mergers and acquisitions, which are a more common type of merger than those between trade associations.

“It was unique to see this corporate kind of merger inside a trade group,” he admits. “I’ve certainly seen it done in the private world.

“But I don’t think that trade associations [have] this monopoly viewpoint,” he explains. “The trade associations are the strongest when they have a specific goal in mind—for SEIA it’s to expand and grow the solar market in a way that is beneficial to its membership—and there are a lot of different ways and a lot of different constituencies that benefit from the solar industry, especially now in a world where affordability is so important.”

Brandt notes that SEIA’s work is driven by its “membership” and “not some whitepaper”, suggesting that, as long as the member organisations of the trade body continue to drive its activities, it is unlikely that a component of the industry, like community solar, would be left behind; “it’s very hands-on in terms of what’s being advocated for,” he says.

Aligning SEIA and CCSA

The influence of SEIA’s members is an effective north star for the organisation as a whole. Indeed, as both Brandt and Bernhardt tell PV Tech Premium, the community solar and utility-scale solar sectors in the US are somewhat aligned in terms of their needs and priorities, so aiming to tackle the challenges faced by one part of the industry could mean fixing the issues that affect the other.

“We want the same thing at the end of the day,” explains Brandt. “We want solar to grow, and access to solar to grow, across all of the different markets.”

“Our development process, in many respects, is not fundamentally different from a utility-scale project,” adds Bernhardt, suggesting that this alignment goes beyond big-picture goals and can affect the nuts and bolts of project deployment.

“We need to go out and acquire land, acquire permits and connect that project to the grid. Maybe the exact permitting process might vary a little bit, depending on the size of the project, [but] I think unified advocacy under one organisation can actually be quite helpful,” he continues. “There are some states, for example, that have passed state-wide siting bills that address siting holistically, for distributed projects as well as bulk system projects.”

To use one example, both utility-scale solar and community solar are significantly impacted by the rapid changes to the US’ grid infrastructure, where the sheer scale of new electricity generating capacity coming online, and the slow pace at which traditional grid infrastructure can be expanded, has led to significant problems with securing grid connections.

Figures from Berkeley Lab show that in 2024, 80% of energy projects withdrew from “inefficient” US grid queues before starting commercial operations, and, outside of efforts to incentivise manufacturing onshoring, domestic policy has focused on efforts to accelerate grid connections.

“The grid’s needs are changing,” explains Bernhardt, positioning community solar as a key part of this changing grid landscape. “15 years ago, or even five to three years ago, energy affordability and the ability to put new generating assets onto the grid to meet basic system needs were a little bit less of the driver; this new era of load growth has had huge ripple effects across the entire US electric industry, including ours.

“We see a recognition to continue to evolve it and adapt our segment to be as productive and beneficial within what the US needs more broadly.”

Operating on a national scale

Both Brandt and Bernhardt also make the argument that the community solar sector has grown so quickly—Bernhardt describes the growth as an “incredible maturing of the industry”—that its challenges are worth considering on the national scale where SEIA has a strong presence.

“If I think back to the start of CCSA, there was a particular set of companies that wanted to be particularly hyper-focused on creating and growing the community solar market, and they’ve done a great job at it, ultimately to the point that they feel that the advocacy of that one topic, and the resources behind it, would also be served well within the SEIA advocacy framework that it has, given how big it is now,” says Brandt.

“CCSA’s done a fantastic job as a trade association steering and enabling that growth, but we’re at a growth where there’s real size and scale there,” agrees Bernhardt. “We’re fundamentally at a different place and the maturity of the industry is manifesting in this merger.”

Ultimately, SEIA is well-positioned to be an advocate for the community solar industry, but the effectiveness of that advocacy will be driven by its members and leaders as new obstacles appear. Just last week, the new-look association saw its first challenge arise when California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law to facilitate balcony solar deployments in the state, but notably vetoed AB 1813, which would have improved access to community solar projects, particularly among low-income customers.

While Newsom argued that the passing of the bill would put “significant upward pressure on consumer energy bills,” his passage of one solar bill, and vetoing of a community solar bill, demonstrate how the two sectors are still not yet fully aligned.

SEIA, for its part, praised the passage of the bills that were signed into law, and criticised the veto of AB 1813. The trade association said that it is “disappointed to see Governor Newsom continue to prevent the Golden State from establishing a viable, scalable community solar with his veto of AB 1813,” so has demonstrated an involvement in both larger-scale and community solar advocacy, which is a cause for optimism.

“I think the advocacy for all things community solar is going to continue to be really strong within the SEIA framework,” concludes Brandt.

Next week’s PV CellTech USA conference will assess the current US policy landscape, and identify what opportunities exist for companies across the solar sector. The event will be held on 13-14 October in San Francisco, and the full agenda, and further information, are available on the event website.