Valuable Infrastructure Just Got More Focus

Article from Investor's Guild. Published Thursday, April 30, 2026. Written by Stephanie Guild, CFA and Maddie Mahoney.

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• Last week, the US grid became a national defense priority as President Trump invoked Section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (DPA) to declare grid infrastructure — transformers, transmission lines, substations, and more — essential to national defense.

  • The determination formally declares grid infrastructure, including transformers, transmission lines, conductors, and electrical core steel, "industrial resources, materials, or critical technology items essential to the national defense."

  • It also waived the standard procedural hurdles under Section 303(a)(1)–(a)(6), meaning the Department of Energy (DOE) can move faster than normal DPA timelines allow.

• Practically, Section 303 gives the Secretary of Energy authority to make direct purchases, loan guarantees, purchase commitments, and investments in domestic manufacturing capacity, without waiting for Congress to appropriate funds through the normal legislative process.

• The backdrop makes the urgency clear: 70% of US transmission lines and power transformers are more than 25 years old, and demand for power transformers has surged 116% since 2019, driven by data centers, EV charging buildout, domestic manufacturing, and electrification. Supply has not kept up.

• For investors, the most direct plays are domestic grid equipment manufacturers with existing capacity constraints.

  • The electrical steel angle is the lesser-known opportunity, but Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel (GOES) is explicitly named. There's essentially one domestic producer, and the federal demand backstop changes the risk profile materially.

  • Copper-related companies are the broadest commodity read across the entire order.

All three areas — grid equipment, electrical steel, and copper — are worth watching as this policy plays out.