Tesla Powerwall was powering 44,000 homes in Puerto Rico during the latest island-wide grid outage due to a hurricane.
The number of Powerwalls on the island is much higher than expected.
In 2017, Puerto Rico’s power grid was badly destroyed by a strong hurricane.
At the time, Tesla had somewhat recently launched its energy division and its Powerwall home battery pack. The company saw an opportunity to help the region and showcase its new product. Tesla focused its then limited Powerwall production on supplying Puerto Rico with battery packs that could provide backup power in case of outages.
We reported that the company focused on critical services. For example, along with the Powerwalls, Tesla deployed a series of Powerpack systems on the Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra for a sanitary sewer treatment plant, the Arcadia water pumping station, the Ciudad Dorada elderly community, the Susan Centeno hospital, and the Boys and Girls Club of Vieques.
The automaker’s energy division also deployed a solar+battery system at a hospital in Puerto Rico.
Less than a year after the natural disaster, Tesla claimed that it had 11,000 energy storage projects underway. That was a surprising number, but now a few years later, we learn that Tesla has kept going and now has Powerwalls at 44,000 homes in Puerto Rico.
Tesla made the announcement on Twitter in response to Powerwall owners reporting the performance of their home battery packs:
The report of the Powerwall performance in Puerto Rico comes after the island was hit by another hurricane in September.
Five years after the devastating hurricane Maria, the island’s power grid was still not ready to take on another strong hurricane and shut down for days in large parts of the island.
However, many homeowners added home battery packs, like Tesla Powerwalls, to their electrical systems over the last few years, and they managed to keep the lights on during the latest hurricane. Many of those battery systems are also connected to solar power, which enables homeowners to operate off-grid.
Tesla’s Powerwalls are not the only home battery packs on the island, though, as other companies have released competing products in recent years.
Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.