On April 8, 2025, U.S. President Trump signed the “Executive Order on Strengthening Grid Reliability and Security,” aiming to address the crisis in America’s power system through institutional reforms focused on short-term stabilization of traditional energy sources.
Currently, U.S. electricity demand is experiencing a “polarized” trend. On one hand, the expansion of AI data centers (with 2,700 across the country consuming 4% of total power in 2022, projected to reach 9% by 2030) and the reshoring of manufacturing are driving a surge in demand—forecast to grow by 16% over the next five years, three times higher than previous estimates. On the other hand, the 80 million transformers that support grid operations have an average service life exceeding 40 years; aging equipment coupled with surging loads constitutes a “ticking time bomb.” This structural contradiction has made power supply stability a strategic focus in national competition.
Concern over America's transformer infrastructure is at the core of this Executive Order. It emphasizes that the U.S. grid must leverage every available generation resource, especially those with secure, redundant fuel supplies capable of long-term, stable operation.
Trump’s directives explicitly call for a full restoration of coal production and coal-fired power generation, and he has issued multiple related orders to guarantee grid security and reliability. Critics argue that by concentrating on traditional-energy, short-term measures and sidestepping grid modernization and the transition to renewables, the administration is “using 20th-century solutions to tackle 21st-century challenges.”
In an interview with Zhongneng Media, international energy-politics researcher Zhang Rui noted, “This Executive Order makes no substantive provisions for building or upgrading the grid; it seems focused only on the generation side, carving out space for traditional fuels.”
Other analysts have pointed out that the electricity struggle has risen to a matter of national survival—high-energy-consumption technologies and the competitive edge of affordable industrial products both heavily depend on stable power supplies consequently, as the core of national energy transmission, grid reliability and security have become key to ensuring the stable operation of the entire energy system.
To meet these challenges, the Order outlines three major response measures:
1. Accelerated Emergency Response
The Secretary of Energy is authorized to trigger the emergency-order mechanism under the Federal Power Act as soon as a potential grid interruption is forecast.
2. Standardized Spare-Capacity Protocols
A nationwide, unified assessment framework must be developed to evaluate reserve capacity, accounting for regional grid differences and validating generation performance against historical data.
3. Dynamic Risk Monitoring
The assessment framework will be integrated into routine regulatory oversight, enabling precise identification of critical generation resources and preventing capacity loss due to retirements or fuel conversions.
These actions reinforce the Administration’s “energy-dominance” agenda, promoting coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric power to meet the rapidly rising electricity needs of AI data centers and domestic manufacturing.