One Year of Energy Self-Reliant States: Stats
For the numerically inclined and because no series of posts should be complete on Energy Self-Reliant States without a chart, here’s the weekly site visits to Energy Self-Reliant States starting with our launch last October. We started slowly, but have been steadily piling on the new visits since early this year. The early summer drop can be blamed on the person pictured below.
The cause of our mid-summer slide:
We’re also getting more people to sign up for our weekly update email, and follow yours truly on Twitter.
Thanks again for a wonderful first year at Energy Self-Reliant States! Help us keep producing these great charts and great analysis of distributed renewable energy by donating!
One Year of Energy Self-Reliant States: Greatest Syndicated Hits
I’ve shared the greatest hits on Energy Self-Reliant States from our first year, but we were honored to be invited to syndicate this blog at Grist, Renewable Energy World and CleanTechnica before the year was out. With a bit of time to revise before we re-published, the top 10 Greatest Syndicated Hits list differs a lot from the list of ones our direct readers selected:
- Busting 4 myths about CSP and PV – (140 comments on Renewable Energy World)
- Cost of nuclear, not Japan crisis, should scrub nuclear power – (78 comments on Grist)
- Want local communities to support wind? Put them in charge. – (94 tweets from Grist)
- Value of solar far exceeds its cost – (359 tweets from Grist)
- Concentrated solar power plants are all wet (the water use issue of concentrating solar power) – (91 comments on Grist, 100 tweets from CleanTechnica)
- Local solar could power the Mountain West right now, all of America in 2026 – (325 tweets, 29 comments on Grist; 1400 views and 140 tweets and 2,200 views at CleanTechnica)
- State Energy Self-Reliance Map – (2,300 views at CleanTechnica)
- Solving wind power variability with more wind – (85 tweets and 46 comments across multiple sites)
- New York City’s solar windfall illuminates America’s clean energy future – (over 100 tweets and 25 comments across multiple sites)
- Is the Bloom Box cheaper than solar? – (43 comments across multiple sites)
One Year of Energy Self-Reliant States: Greatest Hits
What articles did Energy Self-Reliant States readers like the most? Judging by page traffic, the best stories were those that highlighted the falling cost of solar and the value of local solar compared to other sources.
Here are the top 10 stories from our 1st year:
- Astonishingly Low Distributed Solar PV Prices from German Solar Policy
- Home Solar Cheaper Than Every Concentrating Solar Power Plant
- Distributed Solar Power Worth Far More Than Electrons
- Pricing CLEAN Contracts – feed-in tariffs – for Solar PV in the U.S.
- Why tax credits make lousy renewable energy policy
- Smaller Generation Incites Largest Renewable Energy Gains
- Distributed Solar PV Beats Grid Prices with “Balance of System” Cost Reductions
- Distributed, Small-Scale Solar Competes with Large-Scale PV
- Over 80 Percent of German PV Installed on Rooftops
- Centralized v. Decentralized Clean Energy – We May Have to Choose
One Year of Energy Self-Reliant States: Reports
Over the last year, we’ve published a number of reports that coalesce the analysis you see here into hard-hitting examinations of North American energy policy, always looking for the tools to best increase energy self-reliance. Here are the big ones: Energy Self-Reliant States, 2nd Edition This is the report that launched it all, an atlas to … Read More
Thanks for a great 1st year!
Energy Self-Reliant States turns 1 year old today, and I wanted to take some space to share how thankful I am for your support of this project. If you’re reading this, you’re one of over 17,000 unique visitors to the site since we launched on Oct. 20, 2010.
If you like what you read, I encourage you to support this project financially. We’re mostly grant funded, but it’s a thin time for for-profits and non-profits alike, and I need your help convincing the boss that this is as good as writing 50-page reports.
Click And Donate
How else can you celebrate 1 year of killer distributed generation analysis?
Check out the Highlights
Throughout the day I’ll post the highlights of Energy Self-Reliant States Year 1, including:
- our big reports
- the biggest stories
- what folks on the interwebs liked
- and a few site stats for the numerically inclined.
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Tell Everyone You Know About Us
We tweet our own horn, but it’s recommendations from you that have made this site a hit. Let everyone know that this is the place for great charts and a strong commitment to energy self-reliant energy policy.
Thank you!
-John Farrell
Watch: Sun Power Minnesota
This is a presentation given to the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society in October 2011. With costs dropping rapidly and value rising, solar can make enormous contributions to Minnesota’s electricity system and economy. That’s the spirit of this presentation ILSR Senior Researcher John Farrell gave last week to the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society on the potential for … Read More
More Cost-Effective Solar from CLEAN Contracts than Solar REC Markets
The low risk and transparency of CLEAN Contract Programs can provide states with more solar at a lower cost than solar renewable energy certificate (SREC) programs, says a new report released last week. Produced by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), CLEAN v. SREC: Finding the More Cost-Effective Solar Policy finds that an otherwise identical solar … Read More
The Challenge of Reconciling a Centralized v. Decentralized Electricity System
As Americans transition their electricity system to the 21st century, they should ask this question. Does it make sense to pursue strategies such as accelerating the development of new high-voltage power lines that reinforce an outdated paradigm of electricity delivery, or should scarce energy dollars be spent to add new clean, local energy to the grid … Read More