The United States has declared a national emergency over foreign-made gear in its bulk-power system. The August 26 directive, numbered 14420, goes after hardware that invites sabotage, unauthorized remote access, or disruption anywhere along the supply chain.
The reach is wide. Transformers, generators, inverters, battery storage, protective relays and high-voltage circuit breakers are all covered, as are remote terminal units, programmable logic controllers, intelligent electronic devices, distributed control systems and safety instrumented systems. Software, firmware, digital services, maintenance and remote-access capabilities ride along with the hardware. The Energy Secretary gains authority to restrict transactions involving designated Covered Foreign Entities and to impose conditions on equipment already installed, including requirements to identify, isolate, monitor, disconnect or replace it.
No country is named in the order, yet the structure tracks the 2020 Trump-era directive that ended with the Department of Energy banning China-linked suppliers from grid equipment. The White House points to surging demand from data centers, AI, advanced manufacturing and defense production as the reason grid reliability now carries national-security weight.
Implementation falls due within 120 days for rules identifying covered entities and licensing prohibited transactions, and 180 days for Federal Acquisition Regulation recommendations favoring U.S.-made energy infrastructure. For security teams, the order reframes the question from “does this device have a vulnerability” to “who made it, who controls updates, and who can reach it remotely.”
