The upside of Twitter showed in an exchange between Ricardo Rossello, the governor of Puerto Rico, and real-world Tony Stark Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Governor Rossello was seemingly sending a desperate plea of help to someone who gets turned to for that more and more. He was reaching out specifically about support rebuilding the collapsed grid in Puerto Rico. Ever so swiftly, Elon Musk responded positively.
As any CleanTechnica reader must know, the hurricane-stricken island’s best plan for rebuilding the grid should involve solar power and energy storage — two Tesla specialities. Elon hinted that Tesla would be there to help, but the twitter conversation was brief, to the point, and then led to a private phone call.
Here’s the first tweet from Governor Ricardo Rossello, highlighting the possibility of making the recovery a “flagship project” for Tesla. Elon’s succinct responses are below.
I would be happy to talk. Hopefully, Tesla can be helpful.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2017
Sounds good, I look forward to talking later today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2017
It was actually a “normal tweeter’s” initial suggestion that Tesla help that led to the solicitation from Governor Rossello, going by the timeline of tweets:
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 PR govt, PUC, any commercial stakeholders and, most importantly, the people of PR.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 5, 2017
Tesla had already shipped hundreds of its Powerwall battery systems to be paired with solar panels. The joint systems will help the battered island territory restore electric power. For more background on that, Steve Hanley wrote a great piece here on CleanTechnica discussing some of the opportunities at this time. Indeed, it’s the silver lining in the dark hurricane clouds.
Interestingly (and somewhat shockingly, even after covering Elon Musk’s atypical and altruistic priorities so many times), he and the company are prioritizing Puerto Rico support to such an extent (as well as getting the Tesla Model 3 out of production hell) that the Tesla Semi reveal is being pushed back from October to November.
Tesla Semi unveil now Nov 16. Diverting resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks & increase battery production for Puerto Rico & other affected areas.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2017
The internal Tesla Powerwall install team in PR is very small right now. Sending experienced installers from continental US to hire & train local team as fast as possible.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2017
His mother must be proud.
Related Stories:
Tesla Powerwalls + Solar Panels Sent To Puerto Rico
Hurricanes Clear The Way For Tesla To Power Puerto Rico & The Caribbean
