SAVE America’s Transformers
COVER PHOTO: A utility manager drove out in the middle of the night to capture this photo of the aurora overhead while the GICs from the May 2024 “Gannon” solar storm were in full force - actively triggering SolidGround® over a dozen times at this substation - protecting a critical transformer behind those walls.
SAVE America’s Transformers, Secure the Grid!
Our electric grid’s critical transformers are vulnerable to threats that produce Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) – both solar storms and High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) attack.
The production lead times for large power transformers can be up to 4-6 years. So, if a solar storm or HEMP attack ruined your state’s transformers today, it may take until 2032 to receive replacements – meaning that a GIC-induced blackout could be long term and costly. [In 1989 Quebec suffered a 9-hour blackout caused by GIC, resulting in $13.2 billion in economic loss.]
Unfortunately, your state’s transformers are not protected against GIC due to a low NERC protection standard – more than ten times lower than GIC levels experienced during previous solar storms and 35 times lower than the GIC protection recommended in the updated international HEMP standard. [See below.]
The Bad News: We previously voiced our concerns about NERC’s defective standard to the Department of Energy (DOE) in August 2020, January 2022, June 2022, April 2024, July 2025 and November 2025 and yet the GIC threat persists. Transformers remain vulnerable.
The Good News: This is a fixable problem. Proven, tested, and affordable GIC protection technology exists, known as SolidGround which has been successfully operating on the power grid for over ten years. Other nations are installing this technology, including China.
How State Legislators Inspired the “S.A.V.E. Transformers Act”
Throughout 2025, numerous state legislatures expressed interest in threat briefings associated with the GIC threat to the grid. Lawmakers in New Hampshire received briefings by the Center for Security Policy and took their concerns to the influential and bi-partisan National Conference of State Legislatures, who in turn unanimously passed a resolution urging the federal government to work with state governments on… “the protection of electric power generation, transmission and distribution assets from EMPs and geomagnetic disturbances (solar flares); first addressing those sectors most vulnerable and with the longest lead times for repair…”
The NCSL Resolution inspired the development of the “S.A.V.E. Transformers Act” since it is meant to help states first address those assets “most vulnerable and with the longest lead times for repair.”
The “S.A.V.E. Transformers Act” – “Survey All Vulnerable Electric Transformers” – is a first step to identify which transformers need protection from GIC.
The bill has no fiscal requirement and merely compels the utilities to survey their system using existing models while utilizing historic GIC threat levels from solar weather and HEMP to determine which transformers are vulnerable and provide recommendations on how best to fund this protection.
If you ask utility lobbyists about this threat, you will be assured that they have “operating procedures” to “load shed” and “shut the grid down” to protect it. These procedures have never been tested and could spell catastrophe.
Think about this: In the relatively short Texas grid collapse in February of 2021, over 250 people died – mostly from hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning and failure of home medical equipment.
So, what happens if the utilities “load shed” plan (shut down the grid) is used as an “operating procedure” to protect the electric grid from GIC? That means – with no warning – no power to hospitals, emergency services, homes, businesses – all of the critical infrastructures in your state and potentially across the country. People will die. The economy will suffer catastrophic damage.
Shutting down the grid is not a good plan. Protecting the grid from GIC hazards to begin with – at a relatively low cost – is what we need to S.A.V.E. America’s Transformers.
We want to keep the power on by protecting the grid. We hope you do too.
Download Model Legislation:
Save Transformers Act – Short Version
Save Transformers Act – Long Version
S.A.V.E. Transformers Act Explained:
Current State Efforts:
- New Hampshire: The S.A.V.E. Transformers Act has been filed as HB 1723. This bill was heard in the Science, Technology, and Energy Committee on January 14, 2026. Watch the hearing here:
Your State Should Be Next!
If you are a lawmaker interested in receiving a threat briefing or if you are interested in filing the S.A.V.E. Transformers Act in your state, please contact us at: [email protected]
More Information:
The Report: Speed to Power on a Firm Foundation
Throughout 2025, as a culmination of more than a decade’s worth of research and analysis on electromagnetic spectrum threats to America’s grid infrastructure, The Center for Security Policy’s Secure the Grid Coalition published an authoritative report on the threat Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) to America’s electric grid. The report warns of the systemic vulnerability of America’s grid infrastructure to GIC because of dangerous assumptions that originated with NERC and extended to other organizations, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – assumptions that put at risk the lives of every American. The report provides detailed insights on both the GIC threat and the technological solutions that have been developed to protect the grid from its potentially devastating effects.
Comments of Secure the Grid Coalition on DOE “Speed to Power” RFI (2025-18058)
In November 2025, hundreds of private sector companies and organizations provided input to the Department of Energy in response to its “Speed to Power Initiative” — an exciting program prompted by the Trump Administration to help the nation with “accelerating large-scale grid infrastructure projects to win the AI race.”
While many respondents involved for-profit corporations proposing projects, one exclusively represented the public interest. The nationwide Secure the Grid Coalition submitted these comments to the DOE, warning that a critical vulnerability of the current electric grid must be mitigated for “Speed to Power” to succeed.
Addendum on China, re: Secure the Grid Coalition’s DOE “Speed to Power” RFI Response
In January 2026, the Secure the Grid Coalition provided this addendum to the Department of Energy to warn that the People’s Republic of China appears to be protecting its grid from GIC while the United States continues to instead rely on a transparently defective protection standard established by NERC.
