US Grid Supply Chain Order Puts Utilities on Notice as Battery Push Grows

That order, covered by Semiconductor Engineering on 1 October, covers equipment, hardware, software and firmware used in generation, transmission or control facilities operating at 69 kilovolts or above. Large transformers, grid-tied inverters, circuit breakers, battery energy storage systems, SCADA software and industrial control systems all fall inside it. Standard residential solar inverters and commercial distribution below 69 kV do not.

No vendor has been named. Restrictions currently work through broad equipment categories plus country of origin, and the specifics do not exist until the Department of Energy publishes implementing rules by 24 December. Those rules may take the form of a prohibited-entity list, a pre-qualified vendor white list, or both.

"Covered Foreign Entity" is defined broadly: any company, national or subsidiary owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary. The order applies to countries under US arms embargoes, including Russia, Iran and North Korea, but China is the real concern, since the others do not supply much to the power sector.

Compliance is no longer about proving where a device was built. The concern now is how the product works.

Western and US vendors are not automatically clear. Because the order follows the supply chain downward, a US or European manufacturer that sources critical sub-components, chips, communications modules or internal software from a covered jurisdiction may still find its finished product restricted. Transactions after 26 August 2026 can be restricted, and the Secretary of Energy can require equipment installed before that date to be monitored, disconnected, replaced or removed.

The order requires reliability, safety and replacement availability to be weighed before any removal is ordered. Semiconductor Engineering notes the International Energy Agency puts China at roughly 80% of world manufacturing capacity for batteries and solar inverters, and that large power transformers already carry multi-year lead times. A restriction regime that outpaces domestic and allied manufacturing capacity creates its own reliability problem.

Small batteries, big aggregate

On the same day, MIT Technology Review published a look at the other end of the grid, where startups are deploying small batteries in places that avoid the permitting tangle large projects face. PopWheels runs a battery-swapping system for e-bike delivery drivers, with about 50 cabinets across New York City and about 2,500 batteries in circulation, cofounder David Hammer said at a New York Climate Week event on 24 September.

The company recently started supplying food cart operators, letting them replace gas generators. About four of its batteries can supply five kilowatt-hours, enough to roughly cover a day's operation for many carts. Copper builds induction stoves with integrated batteries, and Sam Calisch, its cofounder and CEO, said the appliance helps homeowners avoid expensive electrical upgrades. "We're not just selling a battery for resilience, we're selling it for cost savings," Calisch said at the event.

Every Electric and David Energy sell plug-in batteries for homes and businesses. Every's unit plugs into an air-conditioning unit, and the company pays customers to reduce use during high-stress times. David Energy targets laundromats, parking garages and gyms. Because the batteries are small or built into another device, they generally need no grid upgrades or extensive permitting.

The numbers get larger when aggregated. Calisch said that if every stove in America shipped with a battery, it would add up to tens of gigawatts of power. James McGinniss, cofounder and CEO of David Energy, called the shift "the biggest thing to happen in the power grid sector in the last 20 years." MIT Technology Review still argues large-scale storage remains necessary to support intermittent wind and solar.

Demand signals diverge

The two developments land against diverging demand signals. The US Energy Information Administration said on 30 September that light-duty electric vehicles consumed 8% more electricity in the first six months of 2026 than in the last half of 2025, down from the 13% to 24% growth seen in six-month periods in recent years. Total light-duty EV electricity use has more than doubled since 1H23, reaching nearly 14 billion kilowatthours in 1H26.

New EV sales fell 19% in 1H26 compared with 2H25, after the New Clean Vehicle Credit and Qualified Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit ended on 30 September 2025. BMW opened US orders on 30 September for its first electric 3 Series, the 2027 i3 50 xDrive at $61,500, which is $4,400 less than the petrol M350 xDrive at $65,900, both excluding a $1,350 destination charge. TechCrunch put the gap at 6.7% in the electric car's favour.

CleanTechnica reported on 30 September that FedEx ordered 2,000 electric trucks from California startup Harbinger, and that Tesla held an opening ceremony on 26 September for volume production at its Semi factory in Sparks, Nevada, with output reportedly anticipated at 50,000 trucks per year.