2018 Year In Review

Greetings from OSEIA!  Our mighty staff of three would like to share the highlights of OSEIA’s 2018 work as we begin again this year.  Our new Executive Director, Angela Crowley-Koch has been with OSEIA for just over two months and has hit the ground running! Please join us at our member meeting on Friday, February 22 to meet Angela and engage with us on our 2019 work. Register here.

Thank you, our members and partner organizations, for all your support as we continue to ensure a landscape in Oregon that is prosperous for solar energy.

2018 Highlights

Workforce Development OSEIA had great success related to workforce development in 2018 thanks to the Solar Plus (http://solarplusnw.org) opportunity.  

  • Organized a feedback session with over 30 industry members to identify gaps, opportunities, new partners at the Oregon Solar Energy Conference in 2018.  photo

  • Hosted two inaugural workforce development workshops that focused on new ways of engagement, recruitment, and retention with diversity & inclusion at the center of the conversations.  photos.

  • Launched workforce development webpage < www.oseia.org/workforce > to highlight tools and resources available to the industry.  Our hope is for the information on this page to be crowdsourced so it can stay up to date, please send feedback and suggestions!

  • Lead solar workforce and economic development committee with Solar Plus partners.

Policy/Regulation OSEIA pushed for a new residential incentive in 2018 and hired an expert to represent OSEIA members in the Resource Value of Solar. There is more work to be done in 2019!

  • Worked with solar and energy efficiency stakeholders on the HomeWRAP bill, an effort to bring back incentives for solar and energy efficiency.  The bill had a great hearing and passed through its first committee, but budget challenges held it up at the end of session. Photo of Lobby Day or this one

  • Provided expert testimony to inform the Resource Value of Solar rule making process. (we can link to some testimony we provided, such as this.  Or to the PUC docket summary, here.)

Oregon Solar Energy Conference The Oregon Solar Energy Conference remains one of the most robust, regional solar energy industry conferences in the nation.

  • In 2018 we hosted over 420 attendees including elected officials and representatives of local and global companies and non-profits. Over 30 exhibitors and sponsors participated in the event. Our offerings continue to expand to include even more solar policy and sales training + a heavy focus on utility scale solar, batteries and storage solutions. Workforce development was a big focus for us in 2018 and will remain so for the 2019 event. This wide range of offerings attracts a broad audience, including out of state companies interested in or already doing business in Oregon.  The intimacy of this event allows for in depth face time with exhibitors, attendees, and presenters. The unique enthusiasm and vibrancy of our market keeps bringing our supporters & attendees back year after year.

  • OSEC will return May 7-9, 2019 to Portland, Oregon. OSEIA members receive a 50% discount, email for the code and Register today for early bird pricing!

Committee work OSEIA is happy to offer OSEIA members more ways to engage with staff and initiatives, click here to learn more.  OSEIA needs to know what is important to our members so we can do our best to advocate on your behalf.

  • In 2018, our LRT committee advised staff and the policy committee of the need to update the LRT legislation and what was most important to maintain a future for the license.   The Policy committee was and remains very active in shaping legislative concepts.  The Community Solar committee has provided the needed space for many groups to engage around the slow process of community solar rulemaking and program rollout.  The Workforce Development committee was new in 2018 and provided valuable insight and feedback on OSEIA’s workforce focus. The Utility Solar committee allowed space for networking and brainstorming for our large scale members.  The Technical committee was able to respond to concerns about the City of Portland permitting process. The Membership committee helped to reshape membership dues in 2018, ...did an assessment of OSEIA member communication to help streamline our outreach.

OSSIA Oregon Solar