While Donald Trump's pick for restoring Puerto Rico's power grid is dimmed by controversy, Tesla has stepped up to restore power to a hospital with its cutting edge technology.

Tesla has used its solar panels and batteries to restore reliable electricity at San Juan's Hospital del Nino (Children's Hospital).  This comes just a couple of weeks after company founder Elon Musk reached out to Puerto Rico's governor about how Tesla can help the US territory recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria.  Mr. Musk calls it "the first of many solar+battery Tesla projects going live in Puerto Rico."

Tesla's Solar Power Panels At Work In Puerto Rico/Tesla
Tesla's Solar Batteries In Puerto Rico/Tesla
Tesla

Another solar company, Sonnen, is establishing "microgrids" in Puerto Rico.  Microgrids tend to be small, community-based systems that run on solar power, batteries, wind, or diesel generators.  They can can be quickly repaired and linked up to other microgrids in case of failure.  The company says the first would go live next week, with as many as five more Sonnen microgrids serving communities on the island by mid-November.

The US federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico's finances put a retired Air Force colonel in charge of speeding reconstruction efforts and overseeing coordination with the board, Puerto Rico's government, and Washington.  The additional scrutiny appeared to have been necessary after Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke awarded the US$300 Million contract to restore the island's electric grid to a small, obscure company with two employees - Whitefish Energy Holdings of Whitefish, Montana, which just happens to be the hometown of Secretary Zinke.  Members of congress from both parties are demanding an investigation.

Whitefish appears to be acting as petulantly as the Trump administration:  It threatened to pull its hastily-hired subcontractors out of San Juan after Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz blew the whistle on the the suspicious circumstances around the contract.  Cruz has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump's seeming indifference to the plight of Puerto Rico after the hurricane.

"They are threatening not to do their job which frankly is quite irregular for a company hired to the work for the public sector," said the Mayor.  And soon after, the control board put the ex-military officer to perform daycare over Whitefish Energy.

As Trump and associates dilly dally, only 20 percent of Puerto Rico have power.