On August 26, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order (No. 14420) declaring a national emergency to secure the United States bulk-power system.
For the first time, battery energy storage systems (BESS), grid-tied inverters, and uninterruptible power supplies serving critical infrastructure, alongside large transformers, generators, and circuit breakers, were explicitly placed under such national security review.
Critical components, software, firmware, digital services, maintenance services, and remote-access features within the equipment may also be subject to scrutiny.
The move means that Chinese energy-storage products now face more than just tariff and tax-credit barriers when entering the US market. The administration will have more direct executive authority to decide whether products can be imported, deployed, or allowed to continue operating.
As of now, the order directly targets BESS, inverters, and other large power-system equipment, without singling out battery cells or imposing an outright ban on all Chinese storage products. Specific implementation rules are to be developed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) within the next 120 days.
Under the order, transactions will be prohibited if they fail to meet requirements on all three levels: equipment origin, associated entities, and risk assessment: 1) The equipment is not manufactured, produced, or assembled in the United States; 2) the equipment or its critical components, software, maintenance services, or remote-access features involve a “foreign adversary-controlled entity”; 3) and the Energy Secretary determines that it could cause disruption, unauthorized access, malicious remote operation, supply interruption, or other national security risks.
Upon such a determination, the Energy Secretary may prohibit the procurement, import, transfer, or installation of the equipment. For equipment already in operation, the DOE may require identification, isolation, monitoring, hardening, disconnection, replacement, or even removal.
Over the next 120 days, how the DOE defines critical components, foreign adversary-controlled entities, and supply-chain risks will determine whether Chinese storage products face a security regime largely targeting complete BESS and control rights, or whether the restrictions will penetrate down to market-access limits on battery cells themselves.
Source: WeChat Official Account——高工锂电
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