Last week, Tesla’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, announced on Twitter that he believed the Tesla team could rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid with batteries and solar power.
“The Tesla team has [built solar grids] for many smaller islands around the world, but there is no scalability limit, so it can be done for Puerto Rico too. Such a decision would be in the hands of the PR govt, PUC, any commercial stakeholders and, most importantly, the people of PR.” 1
Tesla has already done similar projects with the Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative in Hawaii, in American Samoa and offered to solve Australia’s energy problems in 100 days. While the Hawaii and American Samoa projects were designed to supply power for smaller populations than Puerto Rico, Musk is confident that Tesla could meet Puerto Rico’s needs.
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Currently, less than 10 percent of the island has power and the governor of PR said it could take A MONTH to restore power to only a quarter of households in the territory. But that’s the good news: the Puerto Rican state-owned electric company said some homes could be without power for FOUR TO SIX MONTHS.
In the interim, Tesla has sent “hundreds of its Powerwall batteries, which collect and store solar energy, to help provide power more immediately to Puerto Ricans.”2 Amazing. Thank you, Elon.
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