Aging U.S. power grid could face 18-month blackout after coordinated attack, expert warns
Former FERC chair Jon Wellinghoff says a strike on nine key substations could plunge the United States into a blackout lasting up to 18 months.
In a 2013 incident, gunmen fired 120 shots at PG&E’s Metcalf substation near San Jose, destroying 17 transformers and exposing a severe vulnerability in the U.S. power network. Former FERC chair Jon Wellinghoff used the event to model the impact of losing critical nodes, concluding that knocking out nine substations—one from each of the ten most vital sites in the Western, Eastern and Texas Interconnections—could shut down the entire grid in about 20 minutes.
He warned that such an outage could persist for 18 months or longer, especially given the aging fleet of transformers, with roughly 75% of distribution units past their 50-year lifespan and large-scale units averaging 38-40 years. Replacement delays have ballooned from under a year to 128 weeks since 2021, with some waits exceeding five years. Energy analysts Ajey Pandey and Tim Holt warned that transformer demand is set to double by 2027, prompting a massive upcoming investment in grid infrastructure. Wellinghoff has already briefed senior officials, urging immediate action to address these systemic risks.
Why it matters
A prolonged blackout would cripple essential services and the economy, affecting every American.
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