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One year after the deadly wildfires on Mauibigjackpot88, Hawaii, and a few weeks after Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to millions of Houston-area residents, it has become abundantly clear that our electricity grid is dangerously vulnerable.

The accumulating wear and tear on the components that hold the grid together, combined with weather that has often been hotter and stormier in some regions, means the wildfires and sustained blackouts may be a preview of how an aging grid could falter spectacularly as weather becomes more extreme and demand for electricity continues to rise.

The National Academy of Engineering calls the power grid the most important innovation of the 20th century, and with the greater electrification of society it will become even more critical. The sprawling system of transmission lines, power plants and transformers connects communities across the United States. Many of the components that tie the system together — utility poles, transmission towers and power lines — haven’t been modernized or upgraded since they were built, often decades ago. The consequences of this neglect, as we have seen, can be catastrophic.

This past spring, a decayed utility pole broke in high winds in the Texas Panhandle, causing power wires to fall on dry grass and igniting the largest fire in the state’s history. Two people died and more than one million acres burned. The Maui wildfire that killed more than 100 people and destroyed the historic town of Lahaina last year began after winds knocked down power lines, also igniting dry grass. The 2018 Paradise fire in California started when a live wire broke free of a tower that was a quarter-century past what the utility Pacific Gas & Electric considered its “useful life.” Eighty-five people died and nearly 14,000 homes were destroyed.

Maintenance budgets for the grid have been insufficient for decades. Solutions exist to reduce the risk of wildfires, such as burying power lines, inspecting every mile of the system, installing modern sensors for early detection of wildfire risk, and controls that allow for the remote disconnection of vulnerable sections of the grid. Granted, these fixes are expensive. To bury transmission lines can easily cost $3 million to $5 million a mile. But research from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab concluded that these overhauls also save money in lives protected and damage avoided in storm-prone areas.

So why haven’t made these investments been made?

State regulators overseeing electric utilities pressure them to keep rates low, which means smaller budgets for trimming trees, modernizing lines or deploying autonomous inspection technologies. Regulators in California recently scaled back Pacific Gas & Electric’s plan to bury 10,000 miles of transmission lines in fire-prone areas. In Texas, regulators have few wildfire regulations for the power sector.

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