Neha Misra is the inaugural global ambassador of the solar workforce development nonprofit Remote Energy and a Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis with the OpEd Project in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
I’ve been working in the solar industry across three continents for nearly 20 years. I’ve been a part of community installations, and I’ve supported women in the remote Indian islands of Sundarbans as they’ve expanded their solar charging infrastructure. I’ve also worked with two award-winning, U.S.-based nonprofits that bring this renewable energy to under-electrified areas around the world. One of them is We Care Solar, whose suitcase-sized portable power generator was named one of Time magazine’s best inventions in 2019. Yet it took 10 years before I met a female photovoltaic installation professional.
Women comprise only 26 percent of the U.S. solar workforce and no more than 30 percent in any clean energy sector, a statistic that includes admin and other non-technical roles. Management is the least diverse; nine out of 10 solar executives are white, an... Read more
