Tech giants have their eyes set on helping out Puerto Rico get back on its feet after Hurricane Maria, looking to to pilot sustainable solutions to rebuild and reconnect areas that have been cut off from power.
One tech giant, Elon Musk, has publicly offered to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s electric grid after the island was devastated by Maria. Tesla would connect its Powerpacks to the grid, helping store energy generated by wind turbines or solar panels and smooth out gaps in the power they produce. The technology has already been tested on smaller islands, and Musk says there “is no scalability limit.”
Project Loon will deploy giant balloons into the stratosphere. They’ll relay internet traffic to remote areas wirelessly, avoiding the cost and time of rewiring along the roads. The project recently received approval from the Federal Communications Commission to deploy in Puerto Rico. The technology has already been used in Peru, where thousands of homes were affected by extreme flooding.
These projects could do more than just reconnect Puerto Rico; they could help hone concepts that could provide a more sustainable future.
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