Google Is Using Hot Air Balloons To Restore Cell Service In Puerto Rico

While Elon Musk is pretending that he can rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid with solar-powered batteries, Google wants to deliver cell phone service using balloons.

Alphabet Inc., Google’s corporate parent, received permission on Friday from the FCC to begin providing emergency cellular service to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico using balloons. The effort appears to be a dry run for Google X’s “Project Loon” moonshot program, which ultimately aims to beam internet across the world using high-altitude balloons.

2) We"ve granted an experimental license to Project Loon; it could help Puerto Ricans access cellular service. https://t.co/VJPbZ0ipYo pic.twitter.com/31IrPhDW00

— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) October 7, 2017

Pai is also waiving regulations on telecom providers operating in Puerto Rico for six months to allow them to focus on the recovery effort.

4) We"ve also extended deadlines for telecom providers, allowing them to focus on restoring networks over paperwork. https://t.co/mo2fj4FELM pic.twitter.com/VvMtg1g9oO

— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) October 7, 2017

Pai said on Friday he was launching a Hurricane Recovery Task Force focused on providing aid to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The agency has also reportedly been working with private companies since the storm to devise ways to more quickly restore the island’s downed communications infrastructure, the Hill reported.

Eight-three percent of the island"s cellular sites remain out of commission, making communication on and off the island difficult, according to the agency.

One of Google X"s "Project Loon" balloons

After exchanging tweets about the possibility of Tesla rebuilding the island’s power grid (presumably after helping itself to a generous portion of federal government aid dollars) PR Gov Ricardo Rosselló and Tesla chief Elon Musk had a 25-minute phone conversation Friday night where the two discussed relief efforts as well as Tesla playing a leading role, Rosselló told USA TODAY. Teams from Tesla and Puerto Rico’s energy sector will continue the talks early next week, Rosselló said at the time.

As proof of a precedent, Musk cited Tesla"s work building a solar energy grid for the Hawaiian island of Kauai. However, Kauai"s population is only around 70,000 people, whereas Puerto Rico’s is 3.4 million. As Newsweek points out, the island"s aging power grid relies on fossil fuels that must be imported by the island, a costly expense. Solar batteries could help alleviate the financial strain on Puerto Rico as it struggles with $74 billion in debt, a large chunk of which is owed by Prepa, the island"s power authority.

However, it looks like Musk might find himself preoccupied trying to rescue his company from yet another embarrassing production fiasco. As WSJ revealed late Friday, the company has been assembling new Model 3s by hand because its production line remains inoperable. Earlier in the week, Tesla revealed that it had completed only a tiny fraction of the 1,500 Model 3s it had promised to deliver by the end of the third quarter, blaming unspecified “production bottlenecks”. To be sure, Musk has sent a team of engineers to oversee installations of Tesla"s "powerwall" home solar battery systems in the homes of Puerto Rican customers.

Here"s a video introducing Project Loon that was published by Google back in June 2013:

Musk Is Sending A "Powerwall Team" To Puerto Rico To Restore Electricity

Update: Tesla"s Musk confirms he is sending an "experience powerwall team" to Puerto Rico to investigate reports of price gouging and oversee installations of Tesla"s "Powerwall" home battery - a product that was initially develoepd by Solar City.

Tesla always charges the same price for a Powerwall (only taxes & shipping costs vary), so something is messed up here. I"ve asked my team to stop shipment to any installers charging excessive premiums.

— 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

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As we detailed earlier, Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants you to know that Tesla could rebuild Puerto Rico"s devastated power grid and make it more resilient, and more efficient, than ever before.

In what appears to be another in a series of exaggerated claims made by the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk said he believes his company could rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid using batteries and solar power technology to make energy on the island less costly. Tesla tweeted his claim in response to a story published by Earther.com about Puerto Rico"s "once in a lifetime" opportunity to build a cutting-edge power grid.

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

Musk"s claims apparently caught the attention of Puerto Rico Gov. Riccardo Rossello, who tweeted "let"s talk" at Musk following the latter"s claim. Musk, for his part, responded that he"d be more than happy to discuss the possibility with Rossello, adding that Tesla "could be helpful."

@elonMusk Let"s talk. Do you want to show the world the power and scalability of your #TeslaTechnologies? PR could be that flagship project. https://t.co/McnHKwisqc

— Ricardo Rossello (@ricardorossello) October 6, 2017

Of course, while Tesla has build solar energy grids for smaller islands, the company hasn"t taken on anything even approaching the scale of rebuilding Puerto Rico"s shattered energy infrastructure. Most recently, Tesla biild a solar eergy grid for the Hawaiian island of Kauai. However its population is only around 70,000 people, whereas Puerto Rico’s is 3.4 million. As Newsweek points out, the island"s aging power grid relies on fossil fuels that must be imported by the island, a costly expense. Solar batteries could help alleviate the financial strain on Puerto Rico as it struggles with $74 billion in debt, a large chunk of which is owed by Prepa, the island"s power authority.

Figures provided to Newsweek by the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative showed that it projects fossil fuel usage will be reduced by 1.6 million gallons per year thanks to the new solar gird. If Tesla could scale this proportionally for Puerto Rico, the island could potentially reduce its fossil fuel consumption by 78 million gallons a year.

As Newsweek points out, this isn"t the first time Musk has publicly offered to help a country with its energy crisis. Earlier this year, Musk claimed that it would take Tesla less than 100 days to solve power problems in the Australian state of South Australia by building a giant battery farm.

Puerto Rico’s electrical grid was utterly devastated by Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma. Weeks after Maria made landfall on the island as a category four storm, fewer than 10% of Puerto Ricans have access to electricity.

The Race For The "Holy Grail" Of Renewables

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

In February, AES Energy’s Escondido battery storage facility in California was hailed as the largest one to date, with a capacity of 30 MW/120 MWh. Now, Tesla is building a bigger one—100 MW/129 MWh—in Australia.

On the face of it, it’s a race for the bigger battery storage system. But there’s much more to it than that.

The race is on for increasingly reliable, grid-scale, quick-to-install energy storage solutions that will make the shift to all-renewable power much more realistic. In this, factors such as renewable-friendly regulation and integration of storage systems with renewable power generation capacity can tip the energy transformation scales.

California is one of the places to be if you’re a renewables fan. Its authorities have ambitious plans in this regard, eventually hoping to replace all fossil-fuel generation capacity with renewables. Wholly reliable grid-scale storage systems are crucial for this strategy, and they are becoming increasingly popular in the state.

Unfortunately, the initiative to make the 100-percent renewable plan a law fell through. Unions, worried about possible job losses, pulled their support. Legislators themselves tweaked the bill, so its goal is now to produce 100-percent greenhouse-gas-free energy. The debate about the feasibility of the plan and how fast it could become a reality continues. California is a cautionary tale for other ambitious clean energy proponents. 

Meanwhile, the leaders of the battery pack are expanding. AES recently teamed up with Siemens on a joint venture, Fluence, focusing specifically on energy storage system development. Fluence will deal in AES’ Advancion and Siemens’ Siestorage platforms, the companies said, adding it will target the development of new energy storage capacity across 160 countries worldwide.

Tesla is looking in another direction. It already has the largest portfolio of completed energy storage projects globally, at 300 MWh. What it is looking for now is integrating future storage systems with wind and solar electricity producers.

When Tesla said it had won a deal for the construction of the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery storage facility in Australia, it noted that the deal involves partnering with local wind power producer, Neoen, which will supply the battery complex with electricity.

At the same time, AES is working mainly with traditional utilities to supply them with energy storage capacity, focusing on constantly improving the energy density and efficiency of its arrays. Tesla’s all-renewables focus is well documented, and now it could give it the lead in the energy storage race.

Earlier this month, Tesla closed another partnership, with wind power leader Vestas, to develop integrated wind power-energy storage solutions. The Danish company announced earlier this year that it has big plans for energy storage, with Chairman Bert Nordberg telling Reuters that the company had 3.2 billion euro (US$3.84 billion) in cash and no debt, so it could afford some good investments. So far this year, Vestas has invested in almost a dozen battery storage makers.

Energy storage, according to AES’ CEO Andres Gluski, is “the Holy Grail for renewables.” It is the key to the renewables kingdom of the future, eliminating the adverse effects of renewable power’s intermittency. Integrating this Holy Grail with the clean energy producers is the next step. Tesla and other battery makers have already made it. Yet staying with traditional utilities might not be a bad strategy either: it will be some time before renewables become the predominant energy source in the world.