September might have been the worst month of 2017 for Puerto Rico. On the 20th of that month, a furious, category 4 hurricane hit the south of Yabucoa Harbor, which destroyed innumerable homes, and establishments. The catastrophe also damaged a large portion of the country’s power grid. Now, it has been more than a month since the calamity hit, but the island still struggles with power recovery. Hopefully, not for long. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk comes to the rescue, saying he could rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical infrastructures.
Elon Musk publicly shared his proposal for Puerto Rico through Twitter. Tesla has been known as an advocate of renewable energy, which the company has proved when they supplied energy to small islands. Such as, the Ta’u in American Samoa, where the company built miles of solar panels, which supplies power to the entire island, and can store enough electricity for three days without any sun.
In Musk’s tweet, he mentioned that Tesla’s technology powers numerous islands, which can be scaled up for Puerto Rico.
“The Tesla team has done this for many smaller islands around the world, but there is no scalability limit, so it can be done for Puerto Rico, too,” Mr Musk tweeted.
The Governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, replies with a positive feedback saying, “Do you want to show the world the power and scalability of your Tesla technologies? Puerto Rico could be that flagship project.”
Although, Tesla is largely known for their sleek, high class, electric cars, the tech company has several other groundbreaking projects like the SolarCity. It’s a solar panel firm that can supply power, and store large amounts of energy in power banks.
Despite the proposal, and a clear approval from Puerto Rico’s governor, Tesla has already been sending battery systems in the country that are being used for their existing solar panels. These systems are helping out in balancing the electricity shortage in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria.
This is not the first for Elon Musk and Tesla. We have witnessed a similar conversation on Twitter between Musk and an Australian software entrepreneur years ago before hurricane Maria. The simple exchanges of tweet led to the creation of a blueprint of the world’s largest battery storage project located in South Australia.
The battery installation in Australia immediately took place 100 days after the contract signature. Within days of construction, Tesla has already completed half of the project.
The magic words seem to start with, “Let’s talk.” These two words were in the same tweet of South Australia Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, just like what Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rossello said.
There are Puerto Ricans who invested in solar panels before the hurricane hit the country. These people are one of the few residents who have a stable power supply in the middle of the calamity.
Hector Santiago, flower grower, invested $300,000 (£230,000) in solar panels six years ago. When interviewed by the Reuters he said, “Everybody told me I was crazy because it was so expensive. Now I have power and they don’t.”
Elon Musk of Tesla has been pursuing renewable projects for years. Besides Tesla motors, and solar energy projects, one of their most notable ventures for renewable energy is SpaceX. It’s where they develop reusable rockets that are being used for space flights.
Surely, Tesla will make more of these sensational concepts that could change the world. Just recently, they unveiled a futuristic transport system that uses a subsonic train. According to the company, these project can transport people from London to New York in less than half an hour. Predictions say, future innovations of Elon Musk could be leisure travels to outer space.
