Close on the heels of European lawmakers calling for restrictions on Chinese inverters, over 50 House Republicans in the U.S. have petitioned the Department of Commerce to curb imports of Chinese electric grid components.

In a letter, the lawmakers expressed fears over the growing use of China-manufactured solar and battery inverters, utility-scale components, and other technologies they say could be exploited to compromise the U.S. electric grid.

The letter pointed to ‘a dangerous overreliance’ on foreign-made equipment amid rising electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence, new data centers, and industrial growth.

The Republican lawmakers referred to reports earlier this year about Chinese solar components deployed across the U.S. containing undisclosed communication devices that could allow remote access, bypass cybersecurity protections, and potentially enable malicious actors to disrupt large sections of the U.S. grid.

“Increasing our reliance on China for inverters and critical grid equipment is a mistake, especially as we have ample supply domestically and from allied nations that would not expose our national security to unacceptable risks,” the lawmakers said, urging Commerce to block future imports of Chinese grid technologies.

“Simultaneously, a growing body of Chinese academic research reveals a systematic and technically advanced focus on how to hack, harm, or even collapse Western power grids, particularly through the exploitation of Chinese-made technologies embedded in American grid infrastructure, including through the use of inverters,” the letter said.

Reports surfaced in May this year that the U.S. had discovered ‘rogue’ communication devices not listed in the product literature of China-made inverters, raising cybersecurity risks.

Earlier this month, over 30 members of the European Parliament made a similar demand to the European Commission. They referred to the threats associated with high-risk Chinese vendors, particularly since 80% of all new solar inverter capacity installed in Europe in 2024 originated from China.

“Without immediate and binding EU action, Europe risks not only its energy security but also the viability of all remaining European manufacturers in this sector. We look forward to your urgent response and a clear timeline for legislative action,” they said in a letter.

India has also taken action to keep rooftop solar telemetry on India-based servers to protect against data leakage. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is advancing a national, vendor-neutral data layer for inverters under the PM Surya Ghar program, which targets 10 million homes and 30 GW of capacity. The push is framed around energy sovereignty, amid concerns that some monitoring dongles and loggers have been routing data to overseas servers.