Standing at a pivotal moment
I had intended to write the opening statement for this issue about our time in California attending RE+ 2024, but it would feel negligent to not acknowledge the devastation that Hurricanes Helene and Milton have wrought on southeastern states. SPW editors flew to an abnormally warm southern California to attend the largest solar trade show in the country, brushing shoulders with more than 40,000 people. Call it a lingering symptom of pandemic lockdown, but it’s overwhelming to see that many people in one place, all who have a similar goal of expanding solar’s footprint, especially here in the United States.
The number of RE+ attendees is a fraction of the nearly 280,000 Americans employed in solar as of 2023. This industry continues to grow in output and employment, and with its rising exploits come more promises for meeting climate goals from municipalities, states and corporations. These goals are dated years and decades away but seem ambitious at first glance because they are unprecedented. For so long we’ve had no standard to build from and minimal federal backing to support it, playing catch-up to the fossil fuel industry’s dominating head start, which has had a long, lucrative history thanks in part to subsidies and legislative support. Fossil fuel consumption has also greatly contributed to the climate we find ourselves in.
Now, in an era of astronomical growth for U.S. solar output, our country and our world are being rocked by cataclysmic weather that is occurring at higher frequency and strength. Parts of our country once considered climate havens were submerged in flood waters, their roads swept away by barreling mudslides and their infrastructure shattered. Many areas in the mountainous Southeast remained without power as Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida just five days following Helene.
The U.S. solar industry is trying to address a problem that is already here. Climate change is not some distant issue that will be dumped onto the next generation to solve, as it has been for decades. Gaps in our electrical infrastructure will continue to be exposed, people will continue to be displaced, the rain will continue to fall and the wind will continue to blow. However, as frightening as this all may seem, humanity has always been capable of solving this problem and saving us from it.
In Rebecca Solnit’s book A Paradise Built in Hell, she examines the phenomenon of people banding together and supporting one another in immediate response to disasters. There is no doubt that neighbors in these Southeast communities ravaged by Helene were the first to help before first responders, legislators and other outside aid arrived.
Like those survivors at the epicenter of climate disaster who have saved each other, the solar industry too holds a lifeline that in combination with other measures could temper and even help remediate the increasingly volatile climate we are experiencing. While this issue focuses on legislation and policy affecting U.S. solar, this industry would not exist without the people who make it. Legislators are elected by those people. They are elected to represent them, and we overwhelmingly desire an electrified grid — one that’s more resilient, free from emissions and powered by the sun.
Billy Ludt
Senior Editor
bludt@wtwhmedia.com
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