Another blackout, another tweet, and Tesla’s Musk sets out to save another grid

Tesla lithium-ion batteries deployed in Southern California.
Image: Macquarie.

Extreme weather event –> grid outages –> Twitter exchange –> major contract for Tesla.

That’s how things seem to play out these days for the US-based EV, solar and battery storage maker, which last week made overtures at coming to the rescue of Puerto Rico, whose grid was decimated by Hurricane Maria in September.

In a familiar looking social media exchange between Ricardo Rossello, the governor of Puerto Rico, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the two agreed to start a conversation about how Tesla could work with the Caribbean Island to “showcase the power of its technology” and re-electrify the US territory.


Just over six months ago, a similar exchange was sparked over South Australia’s grid problems, which – although nothing like Puerto Rico’s – are focused on getting it through another hot long summer by making the most of the state’s high renewable energy penetration.

musk

As RE readers would no doubt know, this Twitter exchange ultimately resulted in Tesla winning a bid to build a big battery in the state, to help balance the grid and get it through the coming summer: a project that is almost complete.

For Puerto Rico, however, the problem is a different one – not to mention bigger and more urgent. Hurricane Maria left Puerto Rico 100 per cent without power when it hit more than two weeks ago, after ravaging the territory’s “already-dilapidated” energy system.

Just today, another substation failure at the island’s capital, San Juan, cut the number of residents there with power from almost 12 per cent to about 7 per cent. The station is expected to be operational again by Sunday night.

As Business Insider reported, the storm damage comes on top of major economic issues that has long seen public infrastructure on the island deteriorate. Puerto Rico effectively sought bankruptcy protection in May, according to the New York Times, and is currently $US123 billion in debt.

The power solution for Puerto Rico – obvious to many, and not just Musk – will need to be based on distributed renewable energy generation and battery storage. And Musk, after some Tweets and a phone call, believes Tesla can do the job with its own Powerwall and Powerpack 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,” he tweeted on Thursday. “Such a decision would be in the hands of the PR govt, PUC, any commercial stakeholders and, most importantly, the people of PR.”

And, in light of how quickly things progressed from a tweet to a major new project for South Australia, this could well be very good news for Puerto Rico. Musk and Rosello are reportedly in discussions.

Meanwhile, as CleanTechnica reports, Tesla has already shipped hundreds of its Powerwall battery systems to be paired with solar panels to help restore power to the island’s 3.6 million people as quickly as possible.

Which works out to be bad news for Australia – both for those consumers awaiting delivery and installation of their pre-ordered Tesla Powerwall 2 units, and for the industry as a whole.

As Nigel Morris put it in a recent Solar Insiders podcast, “there are a lot of people who are sitting on their hands, who’ve placed orders for Powerwall 2s, they aren’t available at the moment, there’s no stock coming into the country… but there’s a lot of people sitting and waiting.

“So the challenge now for everyone around them is to try and grab those customers and convince them to go another way, or else, we could well see a slow year.”

Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, the state-owned electricity company says that some households could be without power for as much as six months. A slow year, indeed.

Comments

6 responses to “Another blackout, another tweet, and Tesla’s Musk sets out to save another grid”

  1. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    Wasn’t it lovely to see the Donald visit PR recently. There he was all positivity about the relief effort and that the human death toll was so small compared with ‘thousands’ after H / Katrina. It was rather sad watching on my TV as the Donald threw packets of paper towels into the crowd around him inside a relief centre. I mean what Leader disrespects his citizens like that after a natural disaster. Shame, Donald, Shame.

    1. john Avatar
      john

      The Donald is just a little bit removed from reality.
      Just remember this person thinks FOX gives him all the information not the actual people inside the Government; therefore he is like a kid removed from reality.
      An elected leader who is a MORON.
      There is no other word I can think of that sums up this person.

  2. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    The only viable solution to replace fossil fuel mobile and remote energy needs is wind and solar coupled with battery storage. The world needs at least 200 gigafactories to cover just passenger car electrification and we have 1/2 a gigafactory operational. It’s not surprising then that EV like Tesla model 3, powerwalls and power packs are in short supply. It’s also not surprising that legacy motor vehicle companies like GM talk the talk of EV but don’t really walk the walk. I hope Musk is able to help these people out and promote solar plus batteries. There seems to be a world-wide shortage of politicians that can understand the urgency of building out battery manufacturing.

  3. Mike Dill Avatar
    Mike Dill

    I put my deposit in for a PW2 six months ago. Since I live in Nevada, where there is no emergency, I expect it will ship in about six months or so.

    1. Greg Hudson Avatar
      Greg Hudson

      All the thousands of Australian might get theirs first… You might get it before 2019 maybe ?

      1. Mike Dill Avatar
        Mike Dill

        Yes, that is a real possibility.

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