Millions of US Homes Need Electrical Upgrades for EVs and Solar (1)

When Lee-Sean Huang and his husband David Colby Reed decided todecarbonize their 120-year-old Providence, Rhode Island, home, they soon discovered it wasn’t even ready for a high-efficiency electric induction stove.

“We had to update the electrical, paying an electrician to run 240 volts for the induction range,” says Huang, who runs a design firm with Reed.

They’re not alone. As many as 48 million homes in the United States may need expensive electrical upgrades to handle the increased power demands of solar panels, heat pumps, and electric car chargers, according to a 2021 paper by Pecan Street, a nonprofit that ...