2011 was an amazing year for renewable energy. All industries had impressive growth, product innovation, and business model innovation.

Here are the top 10 posts from HeatSpring Magazine in 2011, based on the number of reads each post received, and our favorite posts. The data is skewed by two items. First, older posts clearly had more time to accumulate reads. Second, some posts were featured on our monthly newsletter which drastically increases hits.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about what’s most interesting to people. While the main challenge companies are facing is getting their first sales or increasing sales and maintaining profitability, readers seem more interested in articles about technology. This makes sense. In order to be confident about selling and creating an efficient sales process, you must understand how a project is designed and installed.

Here are the Top 10 Posts

1. Top 50 Most Efficient Geothermal Heat Pumps
2. A Simple, 4 Step Guide to Designing Geothermal Systems
3. Top 5 Ways to Spot a Bad Roof in a Solar Assessment
4. Three Most Common Mistakes Made by Geothermal Designers
5. Top 50 Most Efficient Solar Thermal Modules
6. 11 Tips for Proper Manual J Calculations
7. 10th Anniversary Geothermal Survival Kit
8. Geothermal Powers the Statue of Liberty
9. How to Overcome the Top 5 Objections in Selling Solar and Geothermal
10. 3 Things you May Not Know About Solar PV Sales

Here are our Top 5 Favoriate Posts and Why

1. Solar Startup Guide. We love this article for one simple reason. It helps us answer about 50% of the questions we review. Almost everyone we speak with wants to know what they need to do to find a job, install a solar project, or get the proper certification their business needs to start installing solar projects. This post answer all questions in one succinct post.
2. NABCEP Cliff Notes. The NABCEP Cliff Notes are notes taken form our NABCEP Prep Course meant to help students study. The NABCEP is the highest credential a solar PV or solar thermal designer, installer or engineer can receive so many in the industry are looking to get the resource.
3. What the Geothermal Industry Can Learn from the Solar Pros. A review on what the solar industry has done extremely well and what we can do in the geothermal heat pump industry to learn from them.
4. Lessons Learned from Selling a Solar Company to SunEdison. This is a great interview with some amazing insights about how to run a profitable solar installation business that any solar company can learn from.
5. Review of Solar and Geothermal Licenses, Certifications and Permitting. One question we get a lot is “what do I need to be a certified installer of solar/geothermal.” This post answers that question clearly and has been very useful to our readers.