Amid a massive American clean energy shift, grid operators play catch-up

For the better part of the past century, the American electric power system evolved around large, mostly fossil fuel power plants delivering electricity to residences, businesses and industry through a network of transmission and distribution wires that collectively came to be called the electric grid. But as the threat of climate change driven by carbon pollution becomes more dire and as technological advances make wind, solar and battery storage ever cheaper options for powering homes and business, states, corporations and voters are increasingly pushing to aggressively decarbonize the grid. Power generation resulted in more than 1.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and accounted for about a quarter of all U.S. carbon emissions.