America’s ‘Green’ Power Grid Has A Red China Problem

The security of America’s power grid is under threat from the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign regimes who are pre-positioning energy devices they can sabotage from afar. Rapid state government action is needed to remove these technological threats that are already embedded in our electrical grid.

A new report from Strider Intelligence revealed that solar inverters feeding electricity into the U.S. power grid are overwhelmingly manufactured by Chinese companies tied to Beijing’s government and military. These devices are connected to the same networks that power America’s hospitals and defense installations, keep communications and water systems running, drive manufacturing and transportation, underpin the financial sector, and enable emerging technologies like AI and quantum computing.

The Chinese inverters are present at a scale far larger than previously understood. Nearly every utility surveyed by Strider, representing roughly 12% of national electricity generation, relies on Chinese inverters.

As Strider warns, without decisive intervention, “the Chinese government, through its control over [government-linked] firms and data networks, could exploit this access to manipulate or disrupt the U.S. grid in a crisis.” Because these inverters occupy critical control points and can be controlled remotely, they give Beijing a degree of proximity no foreign adversary should ever possess inside American infrastructure.

These vulnerabilities did not appear overnight. They grew out of decades of accelerated “green” energy expansion, during which time solar became the dominant source of new electricity across America. Much of the solar hardware came from companies with direct links to Chinese intelligence and military. Security concerns were ignored in the rush to scale renewables, resulting in American tax incentives and utility fees funding Chinese sabotage devices.

This outcome is in part the product of a successful CCP influence operation. China has long waged an insidious campaign to promote the “green” energy agenda to make the United States more dependent on their products. Research from State Armor revealed that Energy Foundation China, a nonprofit supervised by the Chinese Communist Party, has quietly pushed tens of millions per year into U.S. universities and advocacy groups to push policies that deepen America’s reliance on Chinese technologies. Industrial ambition paired with political influence secured Beijing’s access to our infrastructure.

While federal action is needed, Washington’s response has been slow, disjointed, and largely blind to the scale of the threat. Many of the vulnerabilities sit in infrastructure overseen by the states. That is where the solutions must begin.

State leaders must completely block adversary-linked companies, nonprofits, and middlemen from critical infrastructure. Texas did so with the 2021 Lone Star Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, enacted to prevent a Chinese General from controlling the electrical grid near Laughlin Air Force Base. Entities tied to the CCP have no business inside the systems that power our grid, move our water, carry our data, or keep our transportation networks running.

States should also prohibit the installation of Chinese network-connected technologies that create remote access points and kill switches inside critical systems. Strider’s findings confirm that many inverters and battery systems include built-in communication features that expose the grid to third parties without operator knowledge or consent.

State attorneys general should invoke existing consumer-protection, data-privacy, and deceptive trade practices laws to hold companies liable when they sell equipment that contains malware and kill switches. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently opened an investigation into Chinese Military Company CATL for battery systems that create grid vulnerabilities. Nebraska Attorney General Hilgers and Florida Attorney General Uthmeier have launched fraud lawsuits against Chinese camera systems that facilitate espionage and sabotage. Companies should be enjoined from selling dangerous devices, and the dollars recovered through successful fraud claims should go toward replacing insecure Chinese-connected hardware.

States have the authority to act now, long before Congress finishes arguing over what comes next. They can close the backdoors, cut off adversary-linked contractors, and replace the equipment that should never have been allowed into the grid in the first place.

America cannot secure its future while foreign adversaries secure control over our essential systems. China has spent years pre-positioning itself inside U.S. infrastructure through industrial dominance and political influence. The danger is already inside our systems. We can either treat this as the national security threat it is, or concede that our utilities will be regulated by China’s government instead of our own.

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Michael Lucci is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of State Armor, which he created to develop and enact state solutions to global security threats. Follow him at: @Michael7ucci

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

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