Americans may be clamoring for more clean energy, but efforts to bring wind, solar and other carbon-free technologies to market are being hampered by the nation's outdated electricity grid.

Generating clean energy is becoming easier, but getting it to consumers is not.According to the New York Times, the electricity grid -- which was designed more than 100 years ago -- is often becoming too congested with increased demand to allow for new technologies to actually come on line.

The problem is two fold. Much of the time, wind and solar power is generated in rural areas, far from where the energy actually reaches the bulk of consumers. And to reach the market, more transmission lines will have to be built because the existing lines and equipment cannot handle the volume of electricity that power companies would like.

These and other hurdles to increasing New York's use of clean energy will be the focus of the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund's upcoming policy forum series.