Clean energy: Tesla may bolster Puerto Rico’s grid
Desperate to restore power to his storm-ravaged island, the governor of Puerto Rico turned to Twitter in an effort to get help from an unusual source — Tesla.
After exchanging tweets, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke Friday about using clean-power technologies to bring electricity service back to the island, after Hurricane Maria largely destroyed its already troubled electrical grid.
Although still best known for its luxury electric cars, Tesla also offers solar power systems as well as batteries for storing their energy. Tesla started shipping hundreds of its Powerwall battery packs last week to Puerto Rico, most of which remains without electricity two weeks after the storm hit.
In response to a question from one of his Twitter followers, Musk wrote that Tesla had provided electricity service to islands before and could do the same for Puerto Rico, if the island’s government and people wanted the company’s help. For example, Tesla installed a solar power plant with
matching battery packs on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, selling the electricity to the local utility. Rosselló jumped. “Let’s talk,” he tweeted to Musk. “Do you want to show the world the power and scalability of your #TeslaTechnologies? PR could be that flagship project.” Musk accepted the invitation. “I would be happy to talk,” he wrote early Friday. “Hopefully, Tesla can be helpful.” The two spoke Friday evening, and Rosselló tweeted that it was a “great initial conversation,” with “next steps soon to follow.”
Musk also responded on Twitter to reports that some installation companies on the island had been jacking up the price of Powerwalls and selling them for a high premium. Tesla would cut off shipments to any installer caught doing so, he wrote.
Tesla’s unveiling of its electric semitruck, expected this month, will now occur Nov. 16, Musk said. The delay is partly because of increased battery production for hurricane-ravaged areas, as well as “bottlenecks” in the rollout of its Model 3 car, he said.
Tesla is not the only Silicon Valley company lending its expertise to Puerto Rico’s recovery.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week said his company’s connectivity team was sent to Puerto Rico “to deliver emergency telecommunications assistance to get the systems up and running.” About 90 percent of the island’s cell towers were out of service, he wrote in a post on his Facebook page.
“We’re working to get Puerto Rico back online,” Zuckerberg wrote. He also said the company is donating Facebook ads to send “critical information to people in the region on how to get assistance and stay safe.”
Project Loon, an effort within Alphabet’s division X, said it is exploring options for using its technology, which is still under development, to help Puerto Rico. Loon uses balloons to provide wireless Internet service in hard-to-reach places. It would need to be integrated with a telecommunications firm’s network to deliver signals, said X spokeswoman Libby Leahy.
“We’re working hard with the Puerto Rican authorities to see if there’s a way for us to use Loon balloons to bring some emergency connectivity to the island during this time of need,” she said.
Musk has long cast the transition to clean energy as one of Tesla’s core missions, starting well before its acquisition last year of SolarCity.
He has also touted the ability of Tesla’s batteries to help electrical grids in trouble. The company is creating the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery installation, in Australia, that will be linked to a nearby wind farm. The project came in response to a massive blackout. Musk promised to get the project built in 100 days or provide it for free.
Puerto Rico’s electricity grid was already in dire shape before Maria struck the island on Sept. 20. Since then, some analysts have called for rethinking the way the island generates and delivers electricity. About 47 percent of its electricity comes from burning oil, while 34 percent comes from natural gas and 17 percent from coal and renewables provide just 2 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.