With the rise in shares of many renewable energy manufacturers all over the United States, Iowa and Trump, first time, publicly described the idea that a 32,000 kilometre (1990-mile) wall along the Mexican border could be used as a solar power plant.
President Trump informed supporters that mounting solar panels – PV on top of the proposed border wall of Mexico will allow the solar project to itself compensate for the wall’s cost.
“We’re thinking of something that’s unique, we’re talking about the southern border. Lots of sun, lots of heat, we’re thinking about building the wall as a solar wall, so it creates energy and pays for itself. And this way Mexico will have to pay much less money, and that’s good. Is that good?” – says Trump
The scepticism against the proposed plan
Analysts have shared some reservations in relation to Trump’s proposed plan. They believe that generating enough power to cover the wall cost would take more than hundred years of these solar panels.
However, as per the analyst of New York Cowen & Co. Company – Jeff Osborne, the only possible reason for Trump mentioning solar power in these positive terms is all about giving a boost to various panel makers in the country.
In a research note – Deutsche Bank AG analyst – Vishal Shah stated that when it comes to the Mexican border wall, the solar power companies that are in the best position to win bids are Fist Solar Inc. and Sun Power, and both of them are founded and based in the United States.
As per the statistics;
First Solar closed at $38.42 i.e. 3.2 percent, after the earlier rise of almost 6.7 percent.
Brad Meikel – analyst of Coler & Palmer Inc. said that the rally is all about module prices than actually Trump himself. For many years, there has been a fall in panel prices. A month ago, the prices were in between 35 to 39 cents which have now climbed up to 41 to 43 cents/watt.
The idea of building solar panels over the Mexican border wall is the deliverance of the promises made by Trump’s campaign earlier.
Gleason is in hopes of good execution of the plan
As opposed to the reservations of many analysts, Thomas Gleason – managing partner in Gleason Partners LLC, believe that the wall will be able to generate enough power to compensate its cost in almost 20 years.
But with that, he also cautioned that the Mexican border is not in a straight line. And the intensity of light changes on a monthly basis and this will change the calculations later on. However, the firm has not yet received the approval of the federal government in order to carry out a full evaluation.
Whereas the business leaders of the renewable energy sector seriously commended the initiative taken by Trump for going solar, they also said that they would rather favour a different purpose and location for the installation of a large solar panel wall.
Gleason said that the panels will be manufactured in the United States for installation purposes, but the concrete would entail extensive shipping, as they would have to get truckloads from Mexico, and that would increase the maintenance cost eventually.
Nonetheless, Gleason and Trump retain high hopes with the project and aim at making everybody happy with the results.
