America’s infrastructure is getting older and more complex.
Electricity production and distribution in the U.S. currently depends on more than 10,000 power plants, 642,000 miles of high voltage lines, 56,000 substations and 6.3 million miles of local distribution lines. Much of that infrastructure is over 30 years old.
Meanwhile, extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires and winter storms have increased in frequency and intensity.
The number of extreme weather events in the U.S. that cost $1 billion or more reached 135 between 2011 and 2020, compared with only 65 such events in the previous decade.