As the peak time for U.S. hurricanes arrives, utilities along the nation’s coastlines are facing unprecedented delays in obtaining new power transformers, the critical grid equipment that moves electricity over wires. “There are shortages [of transformers] all over, in all four corners of the U.S.,” Marshall said. “We’re talking about a crisis we see, but a lot of the outside world doesn’t.” An already tight supply line for transformers has become more constrained as an array of forces push supply and demand further apart, a Department of Energy investigation documented this year. U.S. utilities are heavily dependent on foreign transformer...
