New beginnings
It’s a new year in solar power, and a new beginning for me — after nine years, I am signing off as an editor with Solar Power World to continue my career elsewhere in the renewable energy industry.
I started at SPW in 2017, right when the first Trump administration took office. I had a very limited knowledge of the solar industry then, based mostly on what my dad told me in his work as a project manager pursuing renewable energy contracts for Kent State University. Along with a crash course in all the technology that goes into solar arrays of all sizes, I quickly learned the importance of policy for the solar + storage industry in my first days at SPW, and I took that on as one of my beats.
Now, it’s 2026. We’re one year into the second Trump term, and much has changed. Homeowners no longer get tax credits for installing solar power, and large-scale developers have new restrictions and parameters for collecting the credits that help their projects pencil out.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit concerned about the impacts of these changes. But I also have seen in my near-decade in solar how resilient the industry can be. While it’s bittersweet to leave SPW, I’m so grateful I’ll still be working in the industry and telling the stories of how solar is helping the grid and the country, despite the current headwinds working against it.
Since 2017, SPW has given me the chance to learn and try so many new things. Volunteering on a residential solar project on a roof in Berkeley, California, watching the morning fog burn off as we hoisted panels up a ladder. Attending SEIA’s policy conference in Washington, D.C., and sitting in on an International Trade Commission hearing on solar tariffs. Corralling lambs on Silicon Ranch’s co-located solar project and lambing operation in Georgia. Meeting so many friendly faces at RE+ and Intersolar, and enjoying all the new cities along the way (still sad New Orleans didn’t pan out). Experiencing all of these things is the stuff I could have only dreamt about in college in the early 2010s, when even the professors weren’t sure what the future of journalism looked like in the smartphone age.
Thank you to everyone who has trusted me to tell your stories over these past nine years. And thanks especially to Kelly and Billy for being the best coworkers and friends I could’ve asked for.
I hope you enjoy this 2026 Trends in Solar + Storage issue, where we take a look into our crystal ball about what the year ahead holds for the industry.
Kelsey Misbrener, managing editor
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