We need a lot more electricians

The United States lacks electricians to install clean equipment such as electric vehicle chargers, heat pumps and induction cookers. Those who get into the field can win big.

January 11, 2023

This article was produced by Grist in partnership with Post Script Media. Listen to a podcast version of this story.

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Chanpory Rith, a 42-year-old product designer from software company Airtable, bought a house in Berkeley, California, with his partner in late 2020. The couple had no plans to buy , but when Covid hit and they started working from their one bedroom apartment in San Francisco, they developed a new hobby: browsing listings on Zillow and Redfin - "real estate porn", as the said Rith.

Their pandemic fantasy quickly turned into a fairy tale: they fell in love with a five-bedroom mid-century home in the Berkeley Hills overlooking the San Francisco Bay and make an offer. “And then came the joys and tribulations of home ownership,” Rith said.

One ​​of these tribulations began with a plan to install solar panels. Rith didn't consider himself a die-hard environmentalist, but he was concerned about climate change and wanted to do his part to help. He didn't have a car, but was planning to eventually get an electric vehicle and also wanted to replace the natural gas appliances in the house with electric versions. Getting solar panels would be a smart first step, he thought, as it could lower his utility bills. But Rith soon discovered that the home's aging electrical panel would need to be upgraded to support solar power on the roof. And he had no idea how hard it would be to find someone to do it.

Many electricians Rith contacted did not respond. Those that did have been booked for weeks or even months. He said they were so busy that the conversations felt like interviews - like he was being assessed, to determine if his house was worth their time.

"It was like trying to get your kid to a nice kindergarten, where you have to be interviewed and do a lot of things just to be on the radar of those electricians," said Rith Grist.< /p>

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His first-choice company put him on a long waiting list before sending anyone to visit the house. Another gave him an exorbitant quote - over $50,000 to upgrade the electrical panel, as well as installing new grounded outlets to replace the outdated two-prong outlets in the house. Rith ended up putting the project on hold to do some renovations first.

Andrew Campbell, executive director of the University of California, Berkeley's Energy Institute, had a similar experience. Campbell wanted to upgrade the electrical panel of a duplex he owns in Oakland so he could install electric vehicle chargers for the building's tenants. But even after finding a company to take the job, a shortage of technicians and the contractor's overloaded schedule, among other delays, meant it took eight months from when the first electrician arrived until the end of the project.

"I felt like, why am I doing this?" Campbell...