Thousands of California fires have been started by the grid including the deadliest in California history, the Camp Fire. To prevent more fires, the power is preemptively shut off when the conditions are hot, dry, and windy. With climate change, these conditions are more frequent.

Chloe Goshay watches people prepare for a planned power outage. She explores the history of the grid and how it works and how it has failed. She shows us how the Texas power grid failure of 2021 during extreme cold weather could have been avoided with the use of microgrids. A microgrid in the South Side of Chicago keeps residents safe during both extreme cold weather and heat waves.

Delphine Hou, of the California Independent System Operator, and Arun Majumdar, an energy expert from Stanford, highlight the obstacles facing the grid today. It has to be revolutionized to work with renewable energy and more recent demands on it. To reach deep penetration of renewable energy on our grid, we need two things, a way to store energy for long periods of time and a decentralized control system.

Chloe goes to Stone Edge Farm Microgrid where Mac McQuown and his team are testing hydrogen and fuel cells for long-term storage of electricity. The excess electricity generated by solar panels in the summer is used to create hydrogen which is stored so it can be used to make electricity when the sun isn't shining.

Jorge Elizondo's technology is proving to be a solution for running this complex microgrid. He is also working with utilities to control the grid. Jorge and Mac ride out the power shutdowns without losing their electricity. The technology is available. Everyone can have this reliability. But something is slowing us down. Policy.