US President Donald Trump, delivering on his promise of building a wall on the Mexican border, has pitched Republican leaders on a proposal to cover the wall with solar panels and also make use of that generated electricity to overcome the costs of construction and maintenance.
Thomas Gleason, the managing partner of Gleason Partners LLC, presented a proposal to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which included solar panels. While talking to Business Insider, Thomas informed that he had been batting around this thought of building a solar-paneled wall along the US-Mexico border for months.
According to Gleason, he was in contact with a few people who knew Trump, thus, he ordered his firm to come up with a design and “get it in front” of the US President after the DHS requested proposals.
Gleason firmly believed that the solar-paneled wall will generate enough power to pay for the construction costs in less than 20 years. However, he also pointed out few variables like the Mexican border being far from straight line and also, the month-to-month intensity changes, factors that might set hurdles for his calculations. He informed that his organization haven’t yet received obtained a go-ahead from the federal government in order to go forth with a complete evaluation.
The estimate which is based on the manufacturing of solar panels’ cost is also lessening by time. According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, the price of the installation has went down from approximately $8 per watt in 2009 to $1.50 per watt in 2016.
Regarding the solar panels, Gleason informed that the panels would be an offset to avoid casting shadows, the panels would move in order to track the sun. Also, the panels would be able to generate enough electricity to pay for sensors and border patrol stations along the wall’s length. The panels will supposedly generate 2.0MWp electricity per hour.
Bryan Birsic, the CEO of Wunder Capital, a renewable-energy investment company exclaimed, “We're excited that President Trump sees the economic value created by solar installations, as solar prices continue to plummet.”
Gleason thinks that farmers on both sides of the wall would appreciate the wall because of the energy output of the wall that would produce a “microgrid” which might supply cheap power to remote areas on the border underserved by energy utilities. “We'd be our own utility,” Gleason claimed.
Gleason claimed that the cheap, renewable electricity generated by the solar-paneled wall should “mitigate” political resistance by time and also boost property values by the border.
The panels of the wall would be sourced by Gleason’s firm and will be manufactured in the US, whereas, the wall would require shipping truckloads of concrete from Mexico.
“Our intent is to offer a realistic, no-nonsense design for the wall that pays for itself that will make everybody happy, including our president,” Gleason concluded.