A couple weeks ago, I was the “featured journalist” on a massive #SolarChat on Twitter, the biggest yet. Senator Harry Reid joined in, as did the CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, Rhone Resch; OFA Climate Change Campaign Manager JackShapiro; Founder of Climate Hawks Vote RL Miller; and Greentech Media Senior Editor Stephen Lacey. The topic was US solar policy.

During our one-hour chat, #SolarChat rose to the top of Twitter’s trending charts. TweetReach provided some numbers about the event, but it is limited to only the first 1,500 tweets, so it actually under-represents the impact. Nonetheless, even with that limitation, it showed that we brought in nearly 7 million impressions from 335 contributors. The contributors came in from at least 11 countries and 27 US states.

Naturally, Harry Reid dominated as the top influencer (dude has 240,000 followers):

Harry Reid Twitter

And he was actually tweeting (see the pic below). He showed up a little late, as he had to open the Senate floor at around the same time as the start of the #SolarChat, but he offered a lot of good tweets (and I’m sure no one helped him with those 😉 ).

Despite not topping the chart, @CleanTechnica was actually #2, and I (@zshahan3) was #5!

Regarding #SolarChat impressions per Twitter account, here are the numbers for the top 20 Twitter accounts:

TweeterThousand Impressions
SenatorReid1700
CleanTechnica1500
SEIA605
RainaRusso552
zshahan3465
SolarFred231
Stphn_Lacey220
RhoneResch185
JigarShahDC101
SPIConvention96
GlennaWiseman89
IRECUSA79
RL_Miller77
CarlSiegrist59
seth_leitman53
kendra_hubbard49
derekmarkham46
SolarCurator31
NobleIdeas29
Silvio_Marcacci27

Below were the 7 questions asked during the #SolarChat and some of my favorite responses:

Q1 What does the outcome of the midterm elections mean for solar state policy?

https://twitter.com/JigarShahDC/status/532611324639866880

Q2 How can we build political power for solar post-election?

Q3 What would continuing or ending the ITC mean for your business/consumers?

Q4 Besides the ITC, what federal policies do you hope to see shape the future of solar?

Q5 What’s the best way to mobilize the 9 out of 10 Americans who support solar?

https://twitter.com/JigarShahDC/status/532618267072802816

Q6 The solar industry’s job growth is 10x faster than the U.S. average — what role does policy play in that?

Q7 Why are so many leading and small businesses going solar? Can companies shape solar policy? How?

https://twitter.com/laplacanancy/status/532621608863952896

Regarding that last point regarding the true cost of coal, see: Full Cost of Coal $500 Billion/Year in U.S., Harvard Study Finds

For more commentary and wrap-up, see this piece.

Related: “Selling” Solar, Crowdfunding Solar, & More (#SolarChat)