Imagine it’s 2050 and the world has managed to reach net-zero emissions. If you deconstruct the electricity grid and lay it out in a single line, those cables will stretch all the way to the sun.

A 94 million-mile supersized grid is what’s needed to power a greener future and avert climate disaster, according to BloombergNEF. That’s more than double the length of the grid today.

Although solar and wind will undoubtedly be the stars of the energy transition, new renewables capacity is useless without the infrastructure to transport that clean electricity from where it’s produced to the end user. Grids will also be at the heart of enabling the charging network to accelerate the electric vehicle revolution, scaling up energy storage to complement intermittent renewables, and powering the electrolyzers that split water to produce green hydrogen.

The pivotal role of the grid is evident in the bottlenecks preventing the connection of new clean energy