Elon Musk's Tesla Powerwalls Have Landed in Puerto Rico

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Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted he could help rebuild Puerto Rico's electrical grid with his company's solar panels and battery packs and Puerto Rico Governor Ricard Rossello replied in kind. 

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Tesla already sent hundreds of Powerwall batteries to provide electrical stability and keep the lights on while they repair the electrical grid. Each Powerwall stores 14 Kilowatt-hours of energy, but a battery is useless without a power source, so Tesla plans to install solar panels. 

 

According to a photo snapped at San Juan airport Friday, Oct. 13, more Tesla Powerwalls arrived on the island. 

Tesla employees first landed in Puerto Rico a week after the hurricane, helping connect buildings with power and training locals to install their Powerwall battery packs. On September 20, ~80% of the island was without power. This is a serious issue because of the devastation left in the wake of the storm where people have lost their homes and need to communicate with each other. 

The cleaner and independent energy solution is a game-changer for any island with limited resources and geographical features that make running power lines and transporting fuel much more difficult or even impractical. Starting with centralized solar farms is a great stable start and we can expect the next steps to include smaller communities of solar cells that support each other, as illustrated in Tesla Energy video:

 

No Loss, No Gain

With Tesla focusing on rebuilding a great solar-powered battery storage electrical system for Puerto Rico, Elon Musk announced he had to push back the unveiling of the new Tesla Semi truck to November 16... and even fired 400+ employees. 

Anyway, looks like a brighter future for Puerto Rico and a lesson in patience and compassion for shareholders. 

Project Loon Sends Puerto Rico LTE Data Rescue Balloons

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After hurricane storms hit Puerto Rico, the country's access to water, electricity, and communication are in a state of emergency. 

As of Saturday, according to the Washington Post, 11.7% have electricity, 55.5% have water, and 44% have cell phone service.

Now Alphabet, Google's parent company, is stepping in to help with their Project Loon by flying large data balloons over disaster zones in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands until April 4, 2018, enabling much-needed communications. However, we don't know how much they area they will actually cover.

[Google] X spokesperson, Libby Leahy, said: “To deliver signal to people’s devices, Loon needs be integrated with a telco partner’s network—the balloons can’t do it alone. We’ve been making solid progress on this next step and would like to thank everyone who’s been lending a hand.”

Sources: 
https://gizmodo.com/alphabets-x-approved-to-deploy-project-loon-lte-balloon-1819252170