Puerto Rico and their recovery efforts 

Puerto Rico was one of many islands in the Caribbean to be devastated by hurricanes as of late. These storms have been picking up steam in the Atlantic throughout the month of September. Starting with big hitting storms like Harvey, Irma and Jose and finishing off the United States Island of three million was hurricane Maria. Maria knocked about 90 percent of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure off line as the Category 5 hurricane rolled right on through towards the mainland.

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These storms were not the only catalyst to wide spread power outages as of late however, they were in addition to what is said to have been a declining power grid. This was partially due to many of the skilled workers in the electrical field leaving the island for better opportunities on the mainland over the past few years. What this means is that the electrical grid was noted to be fragile and vulnerable to wide spread system failures prior to hurricane season. Despite these factors, some look at this tragedy as an opportunity. Suggested on Twitter by Scott Stapf was a conversation between the island’s government and Elon Musk.

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Musk is the founder of the company Tesla, named after the great inventor Nikola Tesla. After some back and forths on Twitter the government of Puerto Rico and Elon Musk are in conversations about how hurricane Maria can enable a new wave of hope in the recovery of the Island. Although no formal details about the meetings have come out yet, it seems likely that Elon Musk will be involved at least in part of the recovery efforts. The government has said it hopes to have nearly all the power back on by Christmas.

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Yet current conditions limit the hope of many residents, many of which are even unable to provide clean water to their families, not including other necessities like food and those tied into the communication and financial sectors. Some residences of the island say “it’s been like travelling back in time”. No credit cards, debit cards, cell phones, or internet means being without work or food, with the possibility of staying that way for months.

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Despite the need for help now, projects like mass solar fields will take time to plan and construct for an island as large as Puerto Rico. Previous projects in recent years by the Tesla Company have included smaller scalable projects like on the island of Ta‘ū.  Ta‘ū, where owners have invested in an encompassing micro grid which provides almost all the power used by the 600 residents of the island. No word has come out yet on the timeline to complete similar projects for Puerto Rico, but residents are trying to remain hopeful among the devastation.

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Micro grids are especially appealing because their functionality allows them to acquire and store energy for days without sunlight, or risks of centralised failures. The benefit of independent micro grids is they can be disconnected from each other easily. This allows for less risk to the power grid in future storm seasons, compared to the historical grid on the island.

Some major barriers do still exist before the realities of a fully renewable energy Puerto Rico can come into fruition. Political barriers are not among the problems currently discussed for the project as is the case in other parts of the United States. However time and skilled workers are both an issue with the dream project. Not only are the grids down, but so is nearly every other necessity on the island.

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Government on the island has been noted by the media as saying that most of the power should be back up by Christmas. But still many concerned citizens are wondering how. As time goes on we hope to be closer to hearing about the outcomes of the meetings between Mr. Musk and the Puerto Rico government.

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