A short twenty years ago, there was no viable clean energy pathway to replace the U.S. economy’s near-total reliance on fossil fuels. Even as the problems with fossil fuels became increasingly clear and troubling—climate change, life-shortening smog and particulate pollution, and global instability—reliance on coal, gas and oil was growing, with no scalable alternatives in sight. Solar and wind power was little more than a novelty. Nuclear power was on life support. And the transportation sector—powered by the seemingly irreplaceable internal combustion engine—was racking up global growth records.

What a difference a generation can make. A future economy that relies almost entirely on clean energy is now visible on the horizon, aided by a significant global shift toward electrification of the transportation and housing sectors and the 10-year investment runway laid out in the Biden Administration’s foundational energy and climate landmarks: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Today, clean energy in the U.S. is cost-competitive with or outright cheaper than fossil fuels. The cost of utility-scale solar power alone has declined by more than 80% over the past decade. Remarkably, clean energy will account for more than 95% of all new power capacity that will be constructed in 2024.

Amidst all this positive change that could not have been imagined 20 years ago, U.S. electric utilities are playing catch up. Rapid realignment of the energy sector is straining a centralized electric utility model that incentivizes large, traditional capital expenditures over investments that can increase reliability and lower costs, including investments in operational efficiencies, demand-response tools, and other technology-focused solutions.

The U.S.’s electricity grid is a particular problem. Traditionally seen as playing a slow-and-steady “back office”-type support role in the power sector, the grid now faces an unprecedented challenge. It must absorb significant new pulses of localized and distant clean energy resources as the power sector transitions rapidly from fossil fuels to clean energy, as overall electricity demand ramps up with electrification of the building and transportation sectors and the proliferation of power-hungry data centers and AI applications.

It is already apparent that the grid is not up to the task. Long grid interconnection queues have formed all around the U.S., hindering faster integration of new clean energy supplies into the grid. At 2.6 terawatts in size, the total amount of clean power stuck in interconnection queues is now about double the size of the entire existing U.S. electrical grid. The typical renewable energy project in 2023 spent more than five years in queue for interconnection approval—compared to fewer than two years in 2008, according to a recent report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In July of 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved reforms that aim to modernize and speed up the interconnection process, but that process was never meant to build large regional and interregional backbone infrastructure that is essential for a robust 21^st century energy system.  Without increasing the pace of constructing large, regional transmission infrastructure, interconnection queues will remain a place where clean energy projects go to die.

In-state and inter-state planning processes to expand the electric grid are spotty and, in many cases, virtually non-existent. While FERC recently finalized a rule that requires grid operators to engage in some forward planning for transmission infrastructure, it is not enough. Congress should direct FERC to develop an interregional transmission system and make the Commission accountable (with the aid of new legal permitting authorities) for rapidly and responsibly building out a nation-wide system that will take full advantage our nation’s abundant clean energy energy resources while cost-effectively enhancing the reliability and resilience of the entire grid.

Lastly, the U.S. needs to invest and adopt more energy storage on the grid. Storage ensures that the grid can make the most of intermittent wind and solar by ensuring reliability and resiliency when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Storage solutions that can be deployed right now are available in the form of short-duration batteries and long-duration energy storage systems like compressed air. A few leading utilities are taking action to lock in storage capabilities that will fully integrate renewable energy into the grid as a rock-solid, reliable energy source. Most utilities and their state overseers, however, are moving too slowly with forward procurement to meet this inevitable need—setting up a scenario in which the interconnection queue and transmission capacity problems are being solved but—despite the availability of proven short and long-term storage technologies—intermittency and reliability are not.

In a very real sense, these grid upgrades—reducing grid interconnection delays, planning and constructing new transmission, and bringing robust new storage capacity on line—are the last pieces that must fall into place to secure a clean energy future. All eyes are on federal, state, and regional energy planners and regulators—and the utilities themselves—to fix the grid and cap off a remarkable, and much-needed transformation of the energy sector.

David J. Hayes is a Professor of the Practice at Stanford University and a former senior White House climate advisor for President Biden and Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior.