Reports

In Broad Daylight: U.S. Grid Exposed to Risk from PRC-Manufactured Inverter Equipment

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is systematically targeting America’s critical infrastructure as part of a long-term strategy to gain leverage in a crisis. These are coordinated campaigns to pre-position access across the systems that keep the U.S. running.

A new report from Strider—In Broad Daylight: U.S. Grid Exposed to Risk from PRC-Manufactured Inverter Equipment—details the United States’ growing dependence on inverter-based resources (IBRs), including solar inverters and battery energy storage systems (BESS), manufactured by companies in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These networked, software-driven devices are capable of remote communication and control which, when combined with their PRC origin, expose U.S. critical infrastructure to unprecedented risk.

Under the PRC’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, any domestic company can be compelled to support state intelligence activities. As a result, PRC-made IBRs inherently carry elevated security risks, regardless of direct ties to high-risk entities.

Strider’s analysis found that nearly half of all inverters and BESS imported into the United States between 2015 and 2024 came from a high-risk PRC manufacturer. Additionally, 86% of U.S. utilities surveyed for this report (representing about 12% of installed U.S. capacity) rely on at least one risky PRC supplier in their power composition. Three of the high-risk PRC suppliers found were:

  • Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL): In 2025, the U.S. Department of War labeled CATL a “Chinese military company,” flagging national-security and sanctions exposure.
  • Huawei: The company has a documented history of IP theft accusations, export control violations, and close alignment with the PRC military, intelligence and law enforcement entities. Huawei was added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List and banned from U.S. 5G networks due to espionage risks, but there is no federal rule banning Huawei solar inverters.
  • Sungrow: The company’s CEO and Chairman is a member of the National People’s Congress (the legislative body of the PRC state) and nearly 30% of Sungrow’s senior management are Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members.

The report also documents ongoing PRC research into methods that could enable disruption of the U.S. power grid. Strider identified 2,723 PRC research publications (from 2010 to present) focused on U.S. grid vulnerabilities in the U.S. power grid, including research conducted by PRC entities tied to the country’s military and security services. Key findings include:

  • At least 225 publications related to potential attacks against the U.S. grid—including multiple publications that ran attack simulations on the western U.S. power grid to test new concepts, methods, and tools.
  • 1,083 publications were originally published in Chinese, many of which have never been translated into English.
  • PRC organizations directly administered by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), including the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), are actively researching U.S. grid system vulnerabilities. NUDT is included on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List.