DECEMBER 27, 2019
Horizons
40 NEWSWEEK.COM
Electric Avenues
Entrepreneurs Julie and Scott Brusaw believe one of
the keys to a greener planet is right under our tires
in celebration of the 50th
anniversary of NASA astronauts
landing on the moon, Newsweek is
spotlighting pioneers in science and
technology, highlighting their very
own moonshots and how they hope to
change the world.
Julie and Scott Brusaw are entre-
preneurs in Idaho who have launched
a company called Solar Roadways.
They are working to develop new
materials for street and roads that
can not only turn sunlight into elec-
tricity for the grid but also generate
their own light and produce heat to
melt ice and snow.
What is your moonshot?
scott: Our goal is to cover all paved
surfaces with solar panels that you
can drive on.
What are your panels made of?
scott: Think bullet-proof glass, think
bomb resistant glass. You can tweak
the formula and make it withstand
anything an 18-wheeler can do to it.
How do they work?
scott: We’ve got two pieces of half-
inch thick tempered glass, and we
laminate these two together with
the circuit boards in between. The
circuit boards have the LEDs and
solar cells, the heating
elements and the micro-
processor. Solar cells put
off DC energy, so if you
installed the panels in
your driveway or a parking lot, you
would need to take that DC energy
and convert it into AC energy. We
have a micro inversor we use that
takes that DC and turns it into 240
volts of AC. It goes right into a “load
center,” that’s where your fuse box
is, so it’s feeding your house. If it’s a
parking lot, it’s feeding your business.
If it’s a road, it can feed anything
that’s on the power line.
julie: And we haven’t begun offering
them for sale. We aren’t in full pro-
duction yet.
Do you envision the panel
installation being more of a thing
where governments put them into
highways or where homeowners
put them into driveways?
julie: All of the above, the public
and the private sectors. I’ve got over
20,000 unanswered emails in my
inbox, a mix of homeowners and
business owners from all 50 states,
virtually every country in the world.
We’ve got interest from military bases,
ski resorts, sports stadiums, hotels,
resorts, airports, museums, churches,
universities and the government.
What are the big challenges you’ve
faced trying to make this a reality?
julie: Funding is the
main one. We were so
fortunate to raise $2.2
million on our Indi-
egogo campaign, which
enabled us to buy the building that
we’re currently in and buy the equip-
ment and hire employees. But, that
only goes so far.
Tell me a little bit about what
phase you’re onto now.
BYNOAH MILLER
MOONSHOTS
“Our focus is how
do we help the
planet become
sustainable.”
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