I run a company trying to make American electricity cheaper and more reliable. The single biggest operational constraint is not the technology, the financing, or the physics of the grid. It is the thousands of city building departments that each have a different way of saying yes — and many more ways of saying no.

Case in point: Two of our members — homeowners who let us install a backup battery, about the size of an outdoor AC unit, and who get below-market electricity rates in return — live eight miles apart. Each of their installations, on nearly identical homes, involved identical batteries and an identical installation team. But the red tape was anything but identical.

Read more in Utility Dive here.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.