If you were asked how it is possible to take a big pinch of the cake that the energy market can represent at the moment, surely SolarCity would have the best answer for it, since its great idea is a plan to replace the roofs of 5 million homes Americans with solar panels.
It is a plan that SolarCity, purchased by Tesla a month ago, stated from Leon Musk's own words that released details about it at a conference last month. It is now when we have more details about this ambitious plan that aims to change the landscape of all those roofs of the 5 million homes in the United States.
The plan is not only add solar capacity to the current roofs, but to use the materials of those constructions to integrate the solar cells entirely as a substitute for the more traditional ones such as steel or tiles.
The point of this SolarCity attempt is remove any of the barriers that are today for the adoption of solar for homeowners in this country, by creating a product that has a similar installation process when compared to traditional roofs, while also having a visual appearance that does not distance itself from what we are used to.
SolarCity has not commented on costs or other product details for the panel material, but the price would be one of the key points, as other similar proposals, such as the Dow project, which was launched in 2009, was a failure because they were more expensive than the more traditional roofs.
The truth is that where Musk has set the goal, usually projects in which others have failed, he has been able to turn them into products viable for consumption. But creating a program for 5 million homes from SolarCity means creating something more than the Tesla Model S. And, at the moment, there is no deadline for starting with this goal.