Elon Musk's open to rebuilding Puerto Rico's power grid, but there's a catch

Elon Musk is keen to give Puerto Rico a solar energy future as the wrecked island rebuilds in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. But the world of federal disaster relief likely isn't ready for his forward-thinking.

The Tesla CEO was interacting with his followers on Twitter, as is his wont, when someone asked if Musk would use his company's renewable energy wing to rebuild Puerto Rico's electricity grid. Linked beneath the query was a long article about the potential implementation of solar and alternative sources of electricity on the U.S. territory, whose residents depended on inefficient practices like burning oil to generate power even before the storm. Ninety-five percent of Puerto Rico is still without power two weeks after Maria made landfall. After the Category 4 storm hit, the entire nation had no power for a time.

Unsurprisingly, Musk answered that Tesla could come to Puerto Rico's aid, if asked by the government and people.

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Tesla reportedly sent employees to install "hundreds" of Powerwall units in Puerto Rico in the wake of Maria to aid in the recovery efforts, so the question isn't too far out of left field. The company has also installed a 13-megawatt solar farm in Hawaii on the island of Kauai and a system from Tesla-acquired Solar City powers Ta’u in American Samoa, which could be the work Musk referred to in his response.

Rebuilding Puerto Rico's electrical grid in the same way would, however, be a project on an entirely different level, no matter what Musk says about Tesla's scalability limit.

Puerto Rico is much larger than Kauai or Ta'u, and there are other complexities to consider, like the need to restore power to the suffering population as quickly as possible. The massive efforts needed to create a new electric grid would require a longer development process. FEMA guidelines likely wouldn't encourage this type of rebuilding efforts, either.

Musk was probably genuine in his response — and there's no proof that the Tesla system couldn't work in Puerto Rico. Given the circumstances, however, an all-new Tesla power gird isn't something that could happen just yet.

That uncertainty didn't stop Puerto Rico's governor Ricardo Rossello from responding to Musk on Twitter a few hours later. Rossello challenged the Tesla CEO to take on the Puerto Rican power grid as a demonstration of the company's capabilities.

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Musk replied that he's open to talk about the project. There might be some progress on planning a Tesla-built power grid for Puerto Rico from the conversation — but that doesn't change the current conditions on the island.

UPDATE: Oct. 6, 2017, 9:22 a.m. EDT: This story was updated to add Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello's response to Musk.