Federal agencies warn of future domestic attacks to electrical substations

BOSTON — The number of security breaches at electrical substations across the country has tripled in recent years and federal officials warn the nation’s power grid remains a potential target for domestic terrorism.

There were 163 reported incidents of physical attacks, vandalism, suspicious activity and sabotage at U.S. substations in 2022, an increase from 57 incidents reported in 2018, Dept. of Energy data shows. Five incidents were reported last year in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Federal officials arrested two extremists last month after investigators said they planned to shoot multiple substations around Baltimore, with the goal of “completely destroy[ing] this whole city.” Recent substation attacks in North Carolina, Washington State and Oregon also knocked out power for tens of thousands of people, and the ongoing threat of future attacks prompted a Congressional subcommittee to request more information from the Dept. of Homeland Security.

“People do understand that this particular part of the infrastructure—substations--are extremely vulnerable,” said Jon Wellinghoff, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The current standard allows power companies to decide which of their locations are most critical and require the most security. FERC ordered a review of those standards in December, to see if those requirements should be increased and expanded to additional sites.

“It is fairly hit or miss from a standpoint of the utilities making the decision of what to protect and what not to protect, and I think they need to increase that list,” Wellinghoff said.

University of Central Florida counterterrorism professor Ted Reynold said the goal of a substation attack is to create chaos.

“There is an agenda, and the agenda is to create chaos which will result in mass violence,” Reynolds said.

Boston 25 visited National Grid substations in Whitman, Holbrook and Stoughton. With the exception of one locked gate in Stoughton, none of the sites appeared to have an active security presence. Our news crew spent several minutes recording video at one site, and no one asked what we were doing or seemed to notice we were there.

“Maintaining the safety and reliability of our system for the customers and communities we serve is our top priority. National Grid regularly works with partners in local, state, and federal law enforcement to protect our assets from physical and cybersecurity threats. We assess the impact of each of our facilities and design appropriate levels of protection, some visible and some not visible, to safeguard critical infrastructure,” a National Grid spokesperson said in an email.

An Eversource spokesperson declined to comment, deferring to the Edison Electric Institute, the association that represents all investor-owned electric companies.

“There is nothing more important to EEI and our member electric companies than protecting our nation’s energy grid. We partner closely with the federal government and with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to focus on prevention, information sharing, and redundancy to manage risk. There is no policy or investment that can eliminate all risk and make the grid completely safe and secure. We work to reduce risk by investing in resilience and by taking a defense-in-depth approach that involves, among other things, developing and exercising emergency response plans to ensure we can respond and recover quickly should an incident impact grid operations,” an EEI spokesperson said in an email.

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