I have spent most of my life living and working in California helping startup companies solve some of the key challenges of our time. From my college days at Stanford to various engineering and executive roles at Apple and LucasArts, California is more than a home — it is core to who I am. And when my home state is burning, I feel the pain.

The facts are sobering. More than 73% of California is in extreme or exceptional drought, compared with just 3% a year ago. As a result, the 2021 fire season started early and burned three times the land area compared to this time last year.

Some look at these facts and pack their bags. I am a stubborn optimist and am not ready to give up on either California or my confidence in passionate teams of entrepreneurs and engineers striving to solve difficult problems. But not all solutions are created equal. It’s imperative that we focus our intellectual, financial and civic resources on developing the most effective technologies for addressing climate change and its consequences. When it comes to the wildfires decimating the West Coast, that means rethinking the way electricity is delivered from power stations to end-users.

California is the nation’s most populous state and the sixth-largest economy in the world. Californians consume an enormous amount of energy from the state’s fragile power grid, which has resulted in brownouts, blackouts and wildfires. These were avoidable catastrophes that have cost billions of dollars and hundreds of lives. So why did they happen and what can be done about it?

They happened because the nation’s bulk power system — including ours in California — was built in the 50s and 60s, and much of the infrastructure hasn’t been substantially improved or expanded since then. Put simply, California has a 20^th-century grid serving a dynamic 21^st-century energy ecosystem. Since the state’s grid infrastructure was built, California has added thousands of megawatts of distributed energy resources (DERs), including residential, commercial, industrial and utility-scale solar, as well as wind turbines to its grid. California is also leading the transition to electrified transit. It’s the only state with a deadline for electrifying transit buses, heavy trucks and other commercial vehicles, and it is investing in EV charging stations and encouraging private-sector EV purchase via a tax-incentive program.

While these are all aggressive steps forward in ensuring we attack climate change head-on, our aged and stressed existing grid is simply not equipped to handle this kind of radical energy transition. As California and the rest of the world increasingly embrace a renewable and electrified future, balancing energy supply and demand will only become more challenging and, absent some major changes, more perilous. But I believe these changes can be safely accommodated through smart planning, and the expansive use of technologies that can safely wring every megawatt of capacity from the state’s existing bulk power system.

In November, President Biden signed the infrastructure bill into law, which allocates $65 billion for grid modernization. This law will help clear the way for expanding America’s transmission capacity with new power lines. Adding new transmission capacity is not a simple proposition, however. Building the transmission we require will cost billions in taxpayer dollars and take at least a decade. That’s time we don’t have. The West Coast is already burning.

Thankfully, innovators have risen to the challenge and have developed grid-enhancing technologies that can solve many of our transmission problems today. Late last year, the Department of Energy released a report that identified technologies such as Dynamic Line Ratings (DLR), which use advanced sensors and analytics to unlock additional capacity on existing lines, as one of the most promising grid enhancing technologies being developed.

The leader in this field is a Somerville, MA-based monitoring company that my firm recently invested in. The company has developed a non-contact sensor technology that can unlock up to 40% additional capacity on existing lines using DLR and alerts utilities when their lines are exceeding safe operating parameters. This non-contact sensor technology company is working with leading utilities around the world and has significant projects underway in California to integrate more renewables on the grid and reduce wildfire risk.

The DOE has wanted DLR technology for years, but regulatory challenges have made it difficult for companies to innovate in the transmission sector. As the DOE wrote in a 2019 report to congress, “The U.S. currently lags behind other countries in the deployment of some advanced transmission technologies, such as DLR. One of the variables is the difference in regulatory environments; the U.S. provides transmission owners little incentive to deliver more power over existing lines or to reduce transmission congestion.” This is slowly changing. Leading utilities such as National Grid, Xcel, Dominion, Sacramento’s SMUD, and some 30 other utilities have started using sensor technology to expand their transmission capacity and gain heightened situational awareness. But our political leaders must put in place both carrots and sticks to promote the rapid adoption of DLR to address transmission challenges immediately.

Fortunately, there are several DLR supporters on the Hill. Congresswoman Kathy Castor introduced the Efficient Interconnection Cost Allocation Act of 2021, which would integrate Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) into the interconnection study process. FERC has proposed rules mandating the use of advanced line ratings on power lines. Both are promising steps towards optimizing our existing grid. But we must act with even greater urgency. There is far too much at stake.

What is happening in California is a precursor for what is likely to occur in the rest of America. We in the Golden State are just some of the first to confront the lasting damage resulting from global warming and climate change. From years of devastating droughts to long seasons of deadly, out-of-control wildfires, these events are stark reminders that we must change the way we live and interact with our environment. After far too many years of inaction, we are finally — inevitably — in the midst of a historic transformation of how we power the world. This prospect is both exciting and daunting.

We have so much work to do before a transition to renewables can happen — and so little time to do it. Ensuring utilities are using all existing tools to enable a modern and resilient power grid is absolutely pivotal in meeting our critical goals.