RE+ Northeast 2024 shines in Boston

Despite dire warnings of a foot of snow, 3,500 people arrived at the Boston Convention Center Tuesday morning for the annual RE+ Northeast.

The Northeast show is the flagship regional conference conducted by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). It is also the largest of the RE+ regional conferences and this year it is bigger than ever, having outgrown its previous space and now filling a hall in the convention center.

State representative Jeffrey Roy delivered the welcome to a packed room for the opening session. Roy is chairperson of the joint committee on telecommunications, utilities and energy, and house chair of the manufacturing caucus. He welcomed the clean energy advocates to the Commonwealth, a state with a strong policy support for renewables.

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA highlighted the industries associations roadmap for 2024, what she said is a pivotal year for the industry. She emphasized the importance of state policy, as exemplified in the Commonwealth, noting both risks and opportunities affecting the industry. Partisanship is one of the risks, especially in this election year, she said.

Delivering the keynote was Tarika Barrett the CEO of Girls Who Code, an organization with a mission to close the gender gap in technology. Barrett noted a growing gender gap in females entering STEM professions and the impact that has on the economy.

The exhibit hall is filled with over 200 exhibitors, and the larger convention hall provided plenty space for the influx of attendees. Traffic remained steady throughout the day, with attendees remarking that RE+ Northeast has become a must-attend show.

Yaskawa Solectria Solar debuted its XGI 1500 utility-scale and commercial string inverters, designed and engineered in Lawerence, Massachusetts and assembled and tested in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. The company said its inverters are qualified as domestic end products compliant with the Buy American Act and eligible for tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act. Yaskawa Solectria is exhibiting in booth 325.

One of the technical highlights of opening day was an overview of a new standard by EMerge Alliance. The Alliance describes the new standard as interoperability data model (IDM) framework that allows encoding of electrical compatibility information of microgrid component devices (power sources, conversion, storage, circuit protection and distribution devices) into a machine-readable format.

“This standard and its associated open-source public library satisfies the urgent need for a standardized information framework that can be utilized by design systems to assist inexpert and non-technical users evaluate electrical compatibility in the concept stage of system design and significantly reducing engineering soft-cost of a project,” said Dusan Brhlik, chair of the Microgrid Technical Standards Committee and EMerge Alliance Governing Board member.

RE+ Northeast continues today with more cutting-edge workshops, roundtables, and exhibits. pv magazine USA can be found in booth 850.