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Outgoing CCSA CEO Jeff Cramer said that US community solar ‘has the need for greater scale, resources, and expertise to meet the moment’. Image: CCSA.
The US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA) will combine to form a single trade organisation representing the full breadth of solar PV deployments.
The merger was approved by both trade bodies’ boards of directors and will be effective in “early October,” according to SEIA. CCSA will integrate its team, resources, and policy work into the new trade body, which is expected to continue operating under the SEIA brand; PV Tech has asked the association for clarification on this matter.
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CCSA said that the new trade body would be the only national association to represent “every segment” of the solar and storage industry, and that it would work “at both the state and the federal levels”. This year, the trade body has pushed for stronger cybersecurity measures at a federal level and “applauded” a new bill in Massachusetts to facilitate more flexible home energy systems, which often involve solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
“By bringing CCSA into SEIA, we’re creating a stronger, more unified voice for the solar and storage industry,” said SEIA CEO Tim Pawlenty, who took the position in May, replacing Abigail Ross Hopper who had previously served as CEO for nine years. “Together, we’ll build on CCSA’s success and become a more powerful advocate for every segment of the industry.”
The merger follows the US exceeding 10GW of cumulative community solar capacity at the end of 2025, according to figures from Wood Mackenzie and CCSA, although those figures showed a 25% year-on-year decline in new capacity additions. The most recent figures from SEIA also show that utility-scale solar has become the driving force in US solar additions, with a 45% year-on-year increase in solar deployments driven “almost entirely” by the utility-scale solar sector.
PV Tech has asked SEIA for further details on the new organisation’s plans for the community solar sector, in addition to details on how CCSA personnel will be integrated into the new organisation. For instance, CCSA CEO Jeff Cramer announced on LinkedIn that he would be “departing” CCSA following the move, and that he is “confident the merged organisation will lead us into this next chapter successfully.”
“Today, as distributed community power has become one of the most credible solutions to affordability and grid reliability, so has the need for greater scale, resources and expertise to meet the moment,” added Cramer. “I am deeply proud of the work we have done, the team we built, and the industry we helped shape, and equally excited to see it evolve inside SEIA.”
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