As ranked by Google Analytics page views.
Plus my Top 10 Editorial Picks.
The Blog continued to grow in popularity and influence in 2009. Per FeedBurner, RSS and email subscribers grew from about 750 to over 1200 at year end. After starting to experiment with twitter last January, I did a complete twitter integration in May including automated weekly summary posts Powered by Twitter Tools. One subscriber thought I went overboard with twitter and didn’t care for the dense tweet summaries.
Here are the top 10 GUNTHER Portfolio photovoltaic (PV) posts from 2009 as ranked by Google Analytics single page views. Since many readers enter via the home page, https://guntherportfolio.com, these results are slanted towards search results. The new excerpt template I installed on 01-01-10 will normalize the page views in 2010.
1. Photovoltaic Conference and Exhibition Preview 2009 – I wrote my first conference preview during the 2007 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) and made it an annual post because of popularity.
2. PHOTON’s 7th Solar Silicon Conference was a short post about PHOTON Consulting’s 2009 PV demand and silicon price forecast when everyone was desperate for market guidance during the financial crisis. PHOTON’s 7th Solar Silicon Conference – Part 2 had more detail.
3. Solar Grant: What is a Refundable Renewable Energy Tax Credit? – I still think getting a check instead of offsetting tax liability is not revenue neutral.
4. Enphase Energy and Tigo Energy at Silicon Valley Photovoltaics Society – How many times do I have to say PV power electronics was the hottest area of innovation in 2009?
5. Solar Polysilicon Oversupply until 2013? – And how many of the new polysilicon entrants are real and competitive as contract prices continue to ease?
6. GreenVolts Jolts Concentrating PhotoVoltaic (CPV) Business Plans would not have miscued on Bob Cart if GreenVolts had cooperated. One of my top stories of the year got mentions at CNET, Greentech Media, and PV-tech.org.
7. Photovoltaics: 7 Trends to Watch in 2009 will be reviewed in my 2010 update.
8. Feed-in Tariffs: Solar FiT for Gainesville, Florida! was a milestone for progressive US PV incentive policies.
9. RSI Silicon commences Solar Grade Silicon production and has been quiet since then.
10. Nanosolar surprises in CIGS Photovoltaic parking survey observed something was up at Nanosolar before the 09.09.09 announcement about production. It’s better to co-opt pesky bloggers via an embargoed pre-brief.
Outside of the ones mentioned above, here are what I consider to be my top 10 photovoltaic posts from 2009 using popularity, exclusive content, and my own subjective ranking criteria.
1. GE Solar lays off staff at Newark facility was the most read post of 2010 through the home page. I broke the story, and folks used the info but did not cite me. The Business Insider Green Sheet did it right with “GE Fires Solar Employees After Sudden Collapse Of Demand” by Jay Yarow.
2. In Search of Skyline Solar pierced the stealth on their mid concentration approach followed by Part 2, Part 3, and the recent Skyline Solar Arizona Test Site.
3. First Solar Sarnia Project Ramping sparked interest because it was sourced from local newspapers not a press release.
4. California Reversal of Feed-in Tariff Auction Proposal debunked the reverse auction price setting nonsense.
5. In Search of Nanosolar GmbH – Part 3 updated the status of the 1 MW (MegaWatt) solar project down the road from their module factory in Luckenwalde, Germany. Please also see Part 2.
6. Close to the SolarEdge highlighted the start-up’s holistic, distributed power electronics solution for PV systems.
7. SEIA trashes Gainesville Solar Feed-in Tariff was set into motion by my tweet from the PV Industry Forum. How does the SEIA spell FiT (Feed-in Tariff)? ITC (Investment Tax Credit).
8. GreenVolts GV1: Demolition Man was a sad development for CPV (Concentrator PhotoVoltaics).
9. EU PVSEC: iSuppli 2009 Photovoltaic Forecast Wrong prompted iSuppli to raise their forecast while Navigant Consulting is never wrong (Navigant Consulting’s Bearish 2009 Photovoltaic Backcast).
10. Blue Square Energy Blues exemplified the challenges faced by start-ups to obtain funding in the wake of the financial crisis.
Trumping GreenVolts, the best 2009 PV gossip and boardroom intrigue was covered by Michael Kanellos in “Ousted SoloPower Founder Lashes Back at Investors” and “Correction and Apology: Homayoun Talieh and Solopower” for Greentech Media.
Please see Top 10 GUNTHER Portfolio Posts of 2008 for last year’s top posts.
I wish everyone a Happy New Year and a Tip Top 2010 with health, happiness, and prosperity. I prefer twenty ten although two thousand ten seems reasonable. This could have been the topic of a Seinfeld episode.
(Full disclosure: I own some shares of FSLR stock.)