Midwest Solar Expo held its first conference in Chicago June 9 to June 11 since it was acquired by Intersolar and Energy Storage North America last year, marking Intersolar’s expansion into the Midwest.
This year’s event included 67 exhibitors, a slight bump from the reported number in previous years, and an estimated 900 people were expected to attend the event.
Beckie Kier, Intersolar and Energy Storage North American event director, told pv magazine USA their goal for year one is to support the regional market. “As that evolves,” she said, “we will evolve the conference program and then in supporting the strong exhibit hall to provide the solutions that the attendees need.”
The Midwest Solar Expo sheds light on the innovation occurring in the Midwest, but Candace Letizia, marketing director for Intersolar and Energy Storage North America, noted the “innovation extends beyond the technology that the industry is driving forward and also into the innovation that’s occurring within the workforce,” she said, and noted that the year’s Host Sponsor was labor group Powering Chicago, a partnership group between the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 134 and the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA) of Chicago and Cook County.
As this year was Intersolar’s first regional show in the Midwest, Letizia said there were two things she learned that make Midwest Expo different from her experience in other markets.
“The first,” she noted, “is that this ‘Midwestern hospitality’ is so true. What a great spirit this show has had,” Letizia said. “The atmosphere here has just been very collaborative and very approachable, which I find very refreshing as a northeasterner.”
Letizia said the other notable difference with the Midwest Expo is the demographic and range of professionals among its participants. The involvement from labor and union groups, she noted, is something she hasn’t seen as much of at other Intersolar shows.
Attendees extended from beyond Midwestern states, with people traveling from states such as Georgia, California, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Frank Crandall, account representative for the Midwest and Canada at Enphase, told pv magazine USA that many of the sales reps attended the show because Midwestern states are in their sales territory.
The sessions included state policy recaps from this year’s legislative session. A theme emerged across these sessions when panelists discussed bills that were and were not successful, with panelists often discussing the involvement of groups outside solar and environmental groups as either something they had for successful legislation, or something they wish they had had for those that did not pass.
For example, Illinois recently failed to pass a powerful omnibus energy package that would have created a Storage for All program, a Solar Bill of Rights, virtual power plant programs and more. Championed by environmental justice advocates, the package evolved from the two past omnibus energy bills that helped catapult Illinois to the successful solar market it is today.
“I know a lot of people are probably wondering why it didn’t pass,” Kavi Chintham, Vote Solar’s Illinois campaigns manager, said during the Illinois session, which outlined what the omnibus would have achieved. “We need everyone to really be out there pushing for this omnibus package in the next session. Whatever session this comes up in again, whether it be the veto session or the spring — whenever — it can’t just be advocates.”
“It can’t just be industry, it can’t just be agencies,” Chintham said. “It really has to be everyone coming together and pushing for this because we understand the impacts on ratepayers and on companies that the that the RTO tightening has, that things like data centers coming into the state, those kind of impacts have. We understand that innately because we’re working on that every day, but legislators don’t necessarily understand that.”
“Sometimes they need to hear from a variety of people with different backgrounds in order to really understand the urgency of that,” she said.
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