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Tesla Energy backup helps SpaceX Starship Mk1 face down tornadoes, power outages
SpaceX’s South Texas Starship facilities and Mk1 prototype fell under threat of damage when stormy weather – including multiple tornadoes and heavy rain – impacted the area in the early hours of October 21st.
With a healthy serving of luck, SpaceX’s Boca Chica campus managed to escape largely unscathed, but much of the surrounding area lost power after high winds knocked down numerous utility poles. Thankfully, one of the first things SpaceX installed in Boca Chica, Texas was a large Tesla solar array and multiple Tesla Powerpacks.
Sometime around 3am local time on October 21st, South Padre Island and Boca Chica, Texas were hit by a significant thunderstorm, delivering high winds and heavy rain throughout the region. This is far from unusual for any and all of the coastal areas lining the Gulf of Mexico, but it’s the first (relatively) severe weather to hit SpaceX’s Starship build site in at least a month or two.
LabPadre and SPadre livestreams of SpaceX’s build site went down shortly after the storm kicked up and local commenters suggested that conditions had abruptly soured, raising some mild concerns about the wellbeing of locals in Boca Chica Village, as well as Starship Mk1 itself. The streams likely went down as a result of power outages caused by wind damage to powerlines in the area, but it appears that most of those outages were rectified within a day or so. LabPadre’s stream remains down but SPadre’s is back up and serving excellent live views of stormy weather and thunderclaps.
Perhaps most notably, local weather radar readings indicated that two tornadoes touched down perhaps just a mile or less away from Starship Mk1 shortly after the storm kicked off, raising concerns that SpaceX’s build site could have suffered a direct impact (or two). Thankfully, by all outward appearances, SpaceX’s Starship facility made it through the storm unscathed. Parts of the site experienced significant flooding but things were otherwise unharmed and SpaceX immediately restarted work on Starship Mk1 as soon as the storm died down.
Just a few hours prior to the storm’s arrival, technicians were installing the first heavy-duty leg mounts on Starship Mk1 and that work continued the moment the wind and rain died down.
Weathered residents of Boca Chica Village – located a stone’s throw away from SpaceX’s build site – were largely unphased by the mild storm and the Village itself (and thus SpaceX, too) may have only briefly lost power. Still, an unstable power supply is utterly unacceptable and dysfunctional for a large-scale industrial manufacturing site like SpaceX’s Starship facilities.
Thankfully, SpaceX’s South Texas presence includes a substantial solar array and Tesla Powerpack installation, likely capable of powering the company’s Starship build site and communications antennas for hours in the event of a serious power outage. More likely than not, that local grid backup likely came in handy last night, either augmenting or fully supplanting power from the grid at some point.
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Armored Tesla Cybertruck “War Machine” debuts at Defense Expo 2025
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Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan
Tesla plans to supply over 100 Megapack units to support a large stationary storage project in Japan, making it one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities.
Tesla’s Megapack grid-scale batteries have been selected to back an energy storage project in Japan, coming as the latest of the company’s continued deployment of the hardware.
As detailed in a report from Nikkei this week, Tesla plans to supply 142 Megapack units to support a 548 MWh storage project in Japan, set to become one of the country’s largest energy storage facilities. The project is being overseen by financial firm Orix, and it will be located at a facility Maibara in central Japan’s Shiga prefecture, and it aims to come online in early 2027.
The deal is just the latest of several Megapack deployments over the past few years, as the company continues to ramp production of the units. Tesla currently produces the Megapack at a facility in Lathrop, California, though the company also recently completed construction on its second so-called “Megafactory” in Shanghai China and is expected to begin production in the coming weeks.
READ MORE ON TESLA MEGAPACKS: Tesla Megapacks help power battery supplier Panasonic’s Kyoto test site
Tesla’s production of the Megapack has been ramping up at the Lathrop facility since initially opening in 2022, and both this site and the Shanghai Megafactory are aiming to eventually reach a volume production of 10,000 Megapack units per year. The company surpassed its 10,000th Megapack unit produced at Lathrop in November.
During Tesla’s Q4 earnings call last week, CEO Elon Musk also said that the company is looking to construct a third Megafactory, though he did not disclose where.
Last year, Tesla Energy also had record deployments of its Megapack and Powerwall home batteries with a total of 31.4 GWh of energy products deployed for a 114-percent increase from 2023.
Other recently deployed or announced Megapack projects include a massive 600 MW/1,600 MWh facility in Melbourne, a 75 MW/300 MWh energy storage site in Belgium, and a 228 MW/912 MWh storage project in Chile, along with many others still.
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Tesla highlights the Megapack site replacing Hawaii’s last coal plant
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Elon Musk responds to Ontario canceling $100M Starlink deal amid tariff drama
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, opens new tab on February 3 that he was “ripping up” his province’s CA$100 million agreement with Starlink in response to the U.S. imposing tariffs on Canadian goods.
Elon Musk company SpaceX is set to lose a $100 million deal with the Canadian province of Ontario following a response to the Trump administration’s decision to apply 25 percent tariffs to the country.
Starlink, a satellite-based internet service launched by the Musk entity SpaceX, will lose a $100 million deal it had with Ontario, Premier Doug Ford announced today.
Starting today and until U.S. tariffs are removed, Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts.
Every year, the Ontario government and its agencies spend $30 billion on procurement, alongside our $200 billion plan to build Ontario. U.S.-based businesses will…
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) February 3, 2025
Ford said on X today that Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts:
“We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy. Canada didn’t start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe we’re ready to win it.”
It is a blow to the citizens of the province more than anything, as the Starlink internet constellation has provided people in rural areas across the globe stable and reliable access for several years.
Musk responded in simple terms, stating, “Oh well.”
Oh well https://t.co/1jpMu55T6s
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2025
It seems Musk is less than enthused about the fact that Starlink is being eliminated from the province, but it does not seem like all that big of a blow either.
As previously mentioned, this impacts citizens more than Starlink itself, which has established itself as a main player in reliable internet access. Starlink has signed several contracts with various airlines and maritime companies.
It is also expanding to new territories across the globe on an almost daily basis.
With Mexico already working to avoid the tariff situation with the United States, it will be interesting to see if Canada does the same.
The two have shared a pleasant relationship, but President Trump is putting his foot down in terms of what comes across the border, which could impact Americans in the short term.
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Tesla Megapacks chosen for 548 MWh energy storage project in Japan
