For green energy experts, it seems like there’s too much of a good thing right now. While it’s great that there are enough wind, solar, and battery storage projects planned to meet the United States’ climate goals, a growing bottleneck in the nation’s electric grid is keeping most of these projects grounded. The problem stems from a combination of factors: aging infrastructure, a discombobulated electrical grid that makes it difficult to get renewable energy from where it is produced to where it is needed, and the overwhelmed regulators responsible for approving the projects.
A new report by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory outlines the dilemma. The authors surveyed the nation’s seven electric grid operators and 35 major utilities, which together cover 85 percent of the US power load. They found that 1,300 gigawatts of wind, solar, and energy storage…
