“Or something that we can just expect more often?”Įven though utilities, federal agencies and state regulators have implemented measures to harden the grid over the past two decades, experts fear the system is more vulnerable than ever. “Are we going to have armed guards at every substation, every transformer in the country, in order to make sure this doesn’t happen?” FERC Commissioner Willie Phillips asked earlier this month, referring to the North Carolina attack. But federal authorities don’t have jurisdiction over local electrical substations and distribution lines, the type of equipment that was attacked in North Carolina. The rising demand for power for electric vehicles also increases the urgency of securing the grid from attack.įERC announced at its December meeting last week it would direct a key industry standards-setting body to analyze whether it should bolster regulations for protecting critical infrastructure.
But there’s no doubt that the numbers are up in terms of reported incidents.”Īdding to those worries: The number of potential attack points for the grid is set to increase as the Biden administration and Congress seek to expand the power system to accommodate renewable energy such as wind and solar. I don’t think anyone knows that right now. “Is there something more sinister going on?” Richard Glick, chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, told reporters last week. The risks have also caught the attention of federal regulators who oversee the interstate power network. But white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other domestic extremists seeking to sow unrest have taken responsibility for other high-profile attempts to take down swaths of the grid - prompting security experts to grow increasingly concerned about the U.S. “It is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems,” the department said.Īuthorities have yet to identify any suspects in the North Carolina attack, and have only been able to speculate about the motive. And the lights went dark on Christmas Day for 14,000 customers in Washington state after four Tacoma Public Utilities and Puget Sound Energy substations were vandalized, with no suspects in custody, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement on Sunday.
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