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Seven months after workers finished installing solar panels over the Garcia family home near Stanford University, the system is little more than a roof decoration. Problem: The equipment of the local grid is so overloaded that the electricity produced by the panels has nowhere to go.

“We spent $30,000 on a system we couldn’t use,” said Theresa Garcia. “It was just really frustrating.”

President Biden urged legislators and regulators to remove the United States from fossil fuels and countering the effects of climate change. But aging transformers and obsolete power lines can upset ambitious goals of homeowners, local governments and businesses that make it harder for them to use solar panels, batteries, electric cars, heat pumps and other devices that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Most of the equipment in the electrical network it was built decades ago and needs to be upgraded. It was designed for a world where electricity flows from the grid to people in one direction. Homes and businesses are now increasingly supplying energy from rooftop solar panels to the grid.

These issues have become more urgent as the fastest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is currently to move oil and gas powered machinery, cars and heating equipment. electricity generated by solar, wind, nuclear and other zero-emission energy sources. But energy experts said the grid is far from having enough capacity to power anything that could help address the effects of climate change.

“It’s a perfect storm in terms of meeting the demand we’re going to get,” said Michael Johnston, director of codes and standards for the National Electrical Contractors Association. “It’s no small problem.”

Ms. Garcia and her husband Quin bought their home in the Portola Valley a little over a year ago. They invested in solar energy because Ms. Garcia, a 37-year-old biotech lawyer and her husband, a venture capitalist, wanted to do their bit to fight climate change.

The Garcias are not pioneers. According to the California Solar and Storage Association, one in 10 utility customers in the state owns solar power.

Therefore, the Garcias were surprised that their service, Pacific Gas & Electric, did not allow them to fully utilize the panels.

The problem is that on sunny days, rooftop solar panels can generate much more electricity than is used in the neighborhoods where they’re installed. This can overload electrical transformers that help regulate and direct the flow of electricity in a neighborhood, forcing them to shut down or explode. Such problems can be avoided by installing newer transformers with larger capacity.

Barry Cinnamon, CEO of Cinnamon Energy Systems, the company that installed the panels in Garcia’s home, said such problems are very common. “In my experience and understanding of the way utilities do business, they wait until the neighborhood is overloaded and then the transformer blows up,” Mr. Cinnamon said.

PG&E apologized for the delay in upgrading the transformer outside Garcia’s home and stated that it could take up to six months to do so if workers are flooded with projects.

During a heatwave in August 2020, an aging transformer exploded at an electrical substation in downtown San Jose, about 40 miles from where the Garcias live. This darkened the homes of tens of thousands of people, some for days.

The city’s mayor, Sam Liccardo, has expressed disappointment with PG&E, saying the company’s legacy equipment is hampering San Jose’s plan to increase the use of solar panels, electric cars and other new devices. To meet its climate goals, the city has already banned the use of natural gas in new buildings, the largest local government in the country.

“It is infrastructure that has failed,” said Mr. Liccardo, a Democrat. “We are very ambitious. The question is whether there will be a ready grill when we get there.”

Mark Esguerra, senior director of electric asset strategy at PG&E, said the company plans to upgrade its equipment much further. Since the failure in San Jose last year, the company has replaced 400 transformers in and around that city, for a total of 62,000 in Santa Clara County. The company added that about 600,000 of its residential customers support the use of solar panels and 360,000 of its customers own electric cars.

“We know our grid will look different in a few years,” said Mr Esguerra.

How Much and How Fast?

The biggest challenge for policymakers and the utility industry is figuring out how quickly to invest in the grid while keeping energy affordable.

Ben Hertz-Shargel, global head of Grid Edge, a division of Wood Mackenzie, a research and consulting firm, said it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade its nationwide distribution networks to meet the country’s clean energy goals. This does not include spending on long-distance transmission lines and power generating equipment such as solar and wind farms.

Mr. Hertz-Shargel has personal experience with the shortcomings of the electrical grid. While he was recently charging his Tesla at his Long Island home, the electrical equipment connecting the grid’s power line to his home got so hot it melted.

“I’m the only EV in my block, and even that modest use was enough to overwhelm the secondary side of my home grid,” he said. “It just shows how many weak links there are in the utility distribution system.”

How much money utilities spend on their equipment is determined in a complex process involving government regulators who must approve increases in electricity prices paid for upgrades.

Abigail Anthony, a public service regulator who also chairs a committee that looks into these issues at the National Regulatory Service Agency in Rhode Island, said state officials don’t want to raise rates too high as it hurts consumers and could undermine public support for clean energy. Commissioners.

“Not only do cars and heating systems need to be economical, but fuel, electricity also need to be cheap, especially compared to oil, gasoline and natural gas,” Anthony said.

Pressing for more investment, people say the spending will pay off by saving people on monthly bills and averting the worst effects of climate change.

Take this example: If all 330,000 households in San Jose stopped using gas and natural gas and switched to electric cars, heat pumps, and electric water heaters and stoves, the city would use three times as much electricity as it does now. Rewire America, a nonprofit group advocating for grid upgrades and policies to tackle climate change.

But the group claims that the money San Jose residents and businesses spend on electricity won’t necessarily triple or even double. This is because people can generate some electricity through solar panels on the roof and store this energy in home batteries. Sam Calisch, head of research at Rewiring America, said they could install smart thermostats and devices to use electricity when it costs less, such as at night.

Emily Fisher, senior vice president of clean energy at the Edison Electric Institute, a utility industry trade group, gave another example. Mr. Biden wants electric cars to get a makeover Half of new cars sold in the country by 2030. If all these cars were plugged in during the day when energy use was high, utilities would have to spend a lot of money on upgrades. But if regulators allowed more utilities to offer lower electricity prices at night, people would charge cars when there was plenty of spare capacity.

Some businesses are already finding ways to rely less on the grid when demand is high. Electrify America, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, which operates an electric vehicle charging network, has placed large batteries in some charging stations to avoid paying utilities’ charges to businesses that draw too much power.

Robert Barrosa, senior director of sales and marketing at Electrify America, said that eventually the company could help utilities by taking power when there’s too much and supplying it when there isn’t enough.

As a result, electric cars, heaters, stoves and other equipment currently powered by fossil fuels can save the average family. $1,050 to $2,585 per year, according to Rewiring America. These products are more energy efficient and tend to cost less than electricity, comparable quantities of gasoline, heating oil and natural gas. Electric cars and appliances are also cheaper to maintain.

“If done right, money can go even further towards a more reliable network,” Calisch said, “especially in the face of increased stress from climate change.”