Tesla announced on Tuesday it had started setting up solar panels and energy storage units in Puerto Rico, where many residents are still without electricity, over a month after Hurricane Maria struck the island. On October 5, Founder Elon Musk had said that the electric infrastructure in the United States territory could be rebuilt with his solar energy technology.
In a post on Twitter, Tesla said it had set up solar panels and batteries at Hospital del Niño, a children’s hospital in capital city San Juan. This was the “first of many solar+storage projects going live”, the company said.
Musk has also donated $250,000 (around Rs 1.62 crore) of his own money to support humanitarian efforts in Puerto Rico, the BBC reported.
Earlier in October, Musk had said that the Tesla team had set up similar technology in many smaller islands, and that it could be scaled up to work for Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello had responded to his tweet, saying, “Let’s talk.”
“Do you want to show the world the power and scalability of your Tesla technologies?” he had said on Twitter. “Puerto Rico could be that flagship project.”
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