Hurricane Fiona recently swept through the Caribbean as a very powerful Category 4 storm, with its path taking it all the way to Canada.
A large path of the storm’s destruction was through Puerto Rico, where an estimated 50% of the island’s electrical transmission lines were damaged or destroyed, leading to prolonged power outages.
But for those with Tesla Powerwalls, the effects of the outage were much less as the battery energy storage units were able to keep the lights on for more than five days on average while the nation’s grid was down.
The official Tesla Solar (@TeslaSolar) Twitter account announced the stat on Thursday, saying that 44,000 homes across Puerto Rico have Powerwalls. Although the tweet that was used to highlight the accomplishment was actually from a resident in Nova Scotia.
Powerwall powered 44k homes in Puerto Rico for an average of 5 days while the grid was down https://t.co/EwbgxFCRje
— Tesla Energy (@teslaenergy) October 27, 2022
This isn’t the first time Tesla Powerwalls have been put to use after a hurricane in Puerto Rico. Back in 2017 the island was faced with a similarly strong hurricane that badly damaged the country’s power grid.
Tesla stepped up to the plate and installed as many as 11,000 energy storage products in Puerto Rico within a year, a number which has continued to grow and now stands at 44,000 according to the latest count from Tesla.
This is also the second time this hurricane season that Tesla’s Energy products have been showcased. Hurricane Ian hit Florida last month, badly damaging a number of homes. The 155mph (250km/h) winds and torrential rain were no match for a house with a Tesla Solar Roof.
Even the two Powerwall units stayed up and running after being submerged for several hours in the 10′ storm surge.
