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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday October 08 2017, @03:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the watt-did-he-say? dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

After Puerto Rico was hit by two hurricanes back to back in just a few weeks, along with other islands in the Caribbean, most of their power grid was completely destroyed. Tesla quickly started quietly shipping Powerwalls there to try to get power back on to some houses with solar arrays.

Now CEO Elon Musk says that Tesla could rebuild Puerto Rico's power grid with batteries and solar on a bigger scale.

Puerto Rico's electricity rates were already quite high at around $0.20 per kWh and reliant on fossil fuels.

After it was pointed out that Puerto Rico's destroyed grid is an opportunity to build a better one, Musk wrote on Twitter:

"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. Such a decision would be in the hands of the Puerto Rico government, PUC (Public Utilities Commission), any commercial stakeholders and, most importantly, the people of Puerto Rico."

Source: https://electrek.co/2017/10/05/elon-musk-tesla-rebuild-puerto-ricos-power-grid-batteries-solar/


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @07:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @07:01PM (#578930)

    Maybe you should actually read it...

    Puerto Rico’s second largest solar farm, located in Humacao, took a direct hit from Maria’s eyewall. The farm currently accounts for nearly 40% of solar-produced electricity on the island and is currently under expansion to produce even more. Unfortunately, a majority of the newly added solar panels were ripped from their foundation and completely destroyed by Maria’s strong winds.
    ...
    The fates of several other large solar facilities, including the island’s largest site, are unknown as aerial imagery has not reached the entire island yet. More imagery is expected as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) performs daily flights to collect aerial footage. This story will be updated as more images become available.
    ...
    Update: After going through more NOAA imagery, I found some good news. The giant solar field built by Canadian Solar (below) came out relatively unscathed after facing harsh winds from Irma and Maria. These panels are specifically designed to outlast hurricanes. Each panel is built several meters off the ground to avoid floods and reinforced to withstand winds of category 5 hurricanes (156mph).

    When GP said "The solar farm in the bottom images was apparently designed to survive a cat 5 storm and looks unscathed", I'm pretty sure he was referring to that update.

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