The Strategic Vulnerability of America’s Electrical Grid: Why Extremist Terrorists Target Power Stations

By Emma Donnelly

Most Americans have experienced a power outage, whether it was the result of a violent storm or a simple electrical failure. In either case, the loss of electricity can have a crippling effect. Sudden darkness in a home with small children causes panic. First responders struggle to react quickly to emergencies. Without electricity to keep life-saving machines up and running, hospitals suffer severe casualties.

Electricity is woven into the very fabric of our society. Without it, there’s the possibility of mass panic and pandemonium with a potentially disastrous outcome. The power grid, and specifically the United States power grid, is a vast network of power plants, transmission lines, and distribution centers that constantly balance the supply and demand for the energy needed to power everyday life in the U.S. Now, violent extremist groups are targeting the power grid with the intent to incite that incapacitating havoc.

Who is targeting the power grid?

As the power grid becomes a more and more popular target, an important question arises: who wants to destroy the power grid?

Domestic Actors

In recent years, many domestic threats to the US power grid have arisen, often in the form of groups that use violence as a means to achieve a particular goal. US intelligence has labeled these groups as “domestic violent extremists,” or DVEs. The New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy November 2023 policy report explicitly defines a DVE as “an actor ‘based and operating primarily in the United States without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or other foreign power and who seeks to further political or social goals wholly or in part through unlawful acts of force or violence.’”

The term “DVE” represents a vast array of violent groups and factions, and their numbers are only rising. Some of the most prominent and dangerous today are:

Far-Right DVEs:
- Violent white supremacist/white nationalist extremists: These are actors who believe that “white” people are genetically, culturally and/or morally superior to all other races. Typically, they are passionately anti-Semitic and anti-immigration, against any sexual/gender minorities, and exhibit hatred towards “parasites” of society (such as the homeless).
- Violent militia extremists: These are actors who are considered a subset of the broader far-right anti-government extremist movement. They are driven primarily by an intense hatred and fear of government officials and those who represent the government. These groups emphasize strict organizational structure and paramilitary training as a response to perceived government threats to and infringements on U.S. citizens’ constitutional rights.
Far-Left DVEs:
- Violent eco-extremists: These are actors whose extremist tendencies are motivated by the resolve to end harm and/or destruction to all parts of the environment (whether those threats are real or perceived).
- Violent left-wing anarchist extremists: These are actors who are strongly opposed to all forms of capitalism, globalization, and any governing body (basically, they’re opposed to the entire structural integrity of the United States). They perceive them as a threat to society and seek to eliminate them through violent means.

DVEs often carry out planned attacks on strategically chosen targets, and evidence suggests that parts of the power grid are quickly becoming increasingly popular victims.

International Actors

For any foreign actor looking to hack into a nation’s cyber network, the United States is the Holy Grail. Now, with heightened geopolitical tensions due to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, more aggressive cyber-attacks would not be unexpected.

According to senior vice president of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, Manny Cancel, the major foreign actors that possess the capabilities to carry out a cyber-attack on the critical infrastructure of the U.S. are Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. As divisions within the U.S. deepen over the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and the 2024 Presidential Election, America’s power grids are more vulnerable than ever to a cyber-attack from any of the aforementioned nations.

Why is the power grid a popular target?

As DVEs gain more and more power, authorities have reported a sudden spike in attacks on electrical facilities. TIME reporter Vera Bergengruen stated in a 2023 article that in the first eight months of 2022, there were more than 100 reported incidents of attacks and suspicious activity at power stations. These attacks range from threatening acts of vandalism to firing into substations from across the street.

The increase in criminal activity around power stations has begged the question of why power grids are becoming such a popular target. What is there for domestic actors to gain by taking out the power grid?

In some simple cases, sections of the power grid are targeted in order to cover up a specific crime that an individual or a group is planning to commit. Without power, several key institutions, such as schools, banks, and hospitals, are more vulnerable to attacks. For example, on Christmas Day of 2022, an attack on four substations in Washington State was perpetrated by two men who wanted to knock out power in the area so that they could commit a robbery.

More troubling, though, are the attacks by DVEs. The attacks by the DVE terrorist groups on both ends of the political spectrum have a more malevolent motive for targeting power grids than simply covering up a crime. For right-wing Neo-Nazis, attacking the power grid is part of a White-power philosophy called “accelerationism,” which seeks to use acts of violence to trigger mass havoc and cause society to collapse in on itself so that it can be replaced with a new, racist regime. According to some DVEs, taking out the power system is the perfect way to achieve this goal.

Terrifyingly, this pernicious plan could have serious ramifications if the right targets are hit hard enough. The United States is heavily dependent on the power grid to keep people safe and healthy. Without it, the consequences could turn deadly very quickly.

What can be done to prevent attacks on the power grid?

As attacks on the power grid become more frequent, so do attempts to prevent them. In our world of digital connectivity, it’s nearly impossible to completely guarantee safety from any malicious actors, but there have been several approaches put forth on how to fortify power grids against attacks, both physical and cyber.

GOA Recommendations

In 2022, the Government Accountability Office announced that they had discovered several weaknesses in the distribution systems of the power grid that made it easier for hackers to infiltrate the system. Based off of these findings, they made three recommendations (one to the Department of Energy and two to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission):

To the DOE, GOA recommended that they implement a comprehensive federal cybersecurity strategy for the grid that includes a full assessment of cybersecurity risks.
To FERC, GOA recommended that they improve their approved cybersecurity standards to address the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
To FERC, GOA also recommended that they fully evaluate the potential risk of a coordinated cyber-attack, and based on the results, determined whether changes are needed to cybersecurity standards as a whole.

Modernizing the Grid

Attempts have also been made to modernize the power grid to make it more adaptable and resilient in the event of an attack. Researchers at the FREEDM Systems Research Center in North Carolina have found that the current power grid model is not sustainable, and are attempting to address that issue by designing a new power grid system.

According to Dr. Ning Lu, a professor at Noth Carolina State University and one of the researchers assigned to the project, the current power grid model is too reliant on substations, which are small hubs of power that transmit electricity over long distances to homes and businesses. Dr. Lu explains that the new system would not depend so much on substations of the main grid but would instead consist of several “microgrids,” smaller and self-sufficient systems that would be able to source power on their own. By fragmenting the grid into self-powering parts, the impact of an attack would not be as disruptive as it would be if a substation on the current model was taken out.

Our nation is approaching a crossroads. We are facing tough decisions, and in the true spirit of democracy, we are going to have to make some sacrifices. If we fail to adapt, it could tear us apart. The attacks on the power grid do not just serve as warning signs of the malicious plots being hatched by DVEs as we speak. They represent the necessity of this nation to live up to its democratic foundation and do what it has always done when faced with ruin… change.