(Fremont, Calif., August 26, 2026) VDE Americas, a leading provider of technical advisory and risk mitigation services for solar and energy storage assets, today announced Cherif Kedir as its president and CEO. The appointment expands on Kedir’s role as chief executive of the Renewable Energy Test Center (RETC), part of the VDE Group, a pioneering testing laboratory for solar modules, inverters, racking products, and battery energy storage components.
As electricity demand surges amid hyperscale data center development, electrification, and industrial reshoring, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that utility-scale solar and energy storage will account for 79% of new U.S. electric power generating capacity in 2026. At the same time, RETC’s annual PV Module Index Report provides evidence of growing technical risks to solar assets amid shifting technology trends, global oversupply pressures, manufacturing plant relocations, and increasing exposure to extreme weather events.
“As solar and energy storage become increasingly critical to the U.S. power system, industry stakeholders must improve how technologies are evaluated for large-scale deployments,” said Kedir. “VDE Americas is uniquely positioned to help stakeholders identify and mitigate low-probability, high-impact tail risk events, such as one-in-500-year hailstorms, that can cripple an investment portfolio. By accounting for these real-world risks, our site- and technology-specific due diligence helps ensure that critical energy assets remain bankable and insurable.”
Kedir brings to VDE Americas an extensive background in solar and semiconductor durability, reliability, and certification testing, as well as expertise in product development, failure analysis, and performance enhancement. Before joining RETC, which the VDE Group acquired in 2021, Kedir held senior leadership positions at Solaria, a solar module company, and Xilinx, now part of AMD.
“The United States often serves as a testing ground for the technologies that will shape the global energy transformation,” said Ansgar Hinz, CEO of the VDE Group, one of the largest technology organizations in Europe. “Cherif’s appointment advances our goal of providing VDE’s global customers with consistent expertise wherever they operate, while strengthening VDE Americas’ role as an indispensable technical partner to the North American energy industry.”
