Illustration: Andrew DeGraff for Bloomberg Markets
How the US Power Grid Became a Mess—Just When We Need It Most
To make the transition from fossil fuels and keep up with new demand, America’s electric system is overdue for an upgrade.
The US power grid is under stress. Outages are much more common than they were two decades ago, even as electricity consumption has remained little changed. One culprit is the extreme weather brought on by human-caused climate change. Another is the age of the grid, much of which was built in the 1960s and ’70s.
That would be enough of a national problem by itself. But utilities are also under pressure to satisfy a growing need to connect renewable energy sources, which requires building even more transmission lines to carry electricity and more substations to regulate voltage. And electricity consumption is suddenly climbing—or is about to—in large parts of the country. Some utilities are doubling their demand forecasts for the next five years. The main reasons: the electrification of transportation and buildings and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence, which requires uniquely power-hungry data centers.