Energy

Europe's Inverters Now Need US Approval Too

On 28 July the FCC added foreign-produced power inverters and advanced robots to its Covered List. The text says foreign, not Chinese, and that reaches European factories.

EnergyBy Servola Tech Desk2026-07-295 min read

AI-assisted, edited by humans. | Editor-in-Chief: Leon Soliman | Editorial standards

Europe's Inverters Now Need US Approval Too

Key takeaways

The FCC added foreign-produced power inverters and advanced robotic devices to its Covered List on 28 July, and the determination reaches inverters produced in a foreign country regardless of the nationality of the producer, so a unit built in Europe is covered on the same terms as one built in China.
This is the first entry on that list defined by place of production rather than by company name. Every entry since March 2021 named a firm, from Huawei and ZTE to Kaspersky, and a European vendor stayed clear simply by not being that firm.
The block runs through equipment authorization, not customs. Covered equipment cannot receive an authorization under section 2.903(a) of the Commission's rules, and every applicant must certify its equipment is not covered, so the effect lands on new models rather than on hardware already installed.
There is one way out and it runs through the US Department of War. Producers in a foreign country can request a Conditional Approval, evaluated by the Department of War or Homeland Security for inverters and by the Department of War alone for robots.
Brussels is sorting this risk by supplier nationality and Washington is now sorting it by factory address. Ask where a unit was built as well as who built it, because from 1 November the EU funding test and the US authorization test stop giving the same answer.

A list that named companies now names places

On 27 July an interagency body convened by the White House sent the Federal Communications Commission two national security determinations. The next day the Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau released public notice DA 26-786, and the Covered List, which had not changed since 18 March, gained two new lines: foreign-produced power inverters, and foreign-produced advanced robotic devices.

Every entry added to that list since March 2021 has named a company. Huawei and ZTE went on in March 2021, alongside Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua for surveillance equipment. Kaspersky followed in March 2022, then China Mobile International. A vendor could read the list, confirm its own name was absent, and carry on. The Bureau spelled out what changed in a single clause: this newly-covered equipment is identified by place of production, not by entity.

The practical reading is blunt. The determination on inverters covers those produced in a foreign country, regardless of the nationality of the producer. From a United States vantage point, a factory in Bavaria, Valencia or Lodz is a foreign country in exactly the way a factory in Anhui is. The robotics determination is broader still and covers all foreign-produced advanced robotic devices, meaning mobile machines such as humanoids and quadrupeds.

What the two determinations actually say

The inverter finding is a grid-control argument, not a trade argument. The determination states that inverters' remote connectivity introduces additional vulnerabilities which compound as inverter-based resources proliferate on the U.S. grid, and that those vulnerabilities could enable foreign firms to turn off the inverters or use them to collect and exfiltrate data. The interagency body concluded that foreign-produced inverters create both a supply chain vulnerability affecting economic security and a cybersecurity risk to critical infrastructure.

The robotics finding rests on data collection and remote control. Advanced robotic devices, it states, collect data that could be leveraged by malign actors to surveil Americans, enhance the capabilities of foreign intelligence services, or to remotely commandeer the robots. Neither document turns on who owns the manufacturer. Both turn on the machine being networked, updatable and built somewhere else.

The exemption runs through the Department of War

Nothing here is enforced at a port. It is enforced at the authorization stage, which is earlier and harder to route around. Under section 2.903(a) of the Commission's rules, equipment on the Covered List is prohibited from receiving an equipment authorization, and under section 2.911 every application must certify that the equipment is not covered. Without that authorization a device cannot be imported, marketed or sold in the United States. Models already authorized and already in the field are not withdrawn.

The interagency body did build an exit. Entities producing inverters or advanced robotic devices in a foreign country can request an evaluation and receive a Conditional Approval that exempts the device. For inverters, the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security may carry out that evaluation. For advanced robotic devices, only the Department of War may. Applicants have to supply whatever the relevant guidance document asks for.

Read that as a roadmap item rather than a legal footnote. A European manufacturer that wants to keep selling new inverter models into the United States now has a US defence ministry sitting between its product schedule and its largest export market, on a review timetable it does not control. The cost of that review is not the filing fee. It is the quarters that a launch slips while it is pending.

Brussels reached the same worry by the opposite route

Europe moved first on this risk and drew the line somewhere else entirely. On 4 May the European Commission set out that it would gradually eliminate Chinese-made inverters from EU-funded energy projects, working through project-level policy checks and provisions of the EU financial regulation rather than new legislation. An EU official summarised the finding as serious economic and cybersecurity risks, with the worst case being interference in European energy infrastructure severe enough to trigger blackouts.

The mechanism is a funding condition, not a prohibition. Chinese inverters remain legal in projects that take no EU money. The transitional phase begins on 1 November, with full application to new contracts from April 2027, and manufacturers in Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States remain eligible throughout. Lithuania went further and earlier, barring Chinese manufacturers from remote software access to the country's solar, wind and battery storage assets since 1 May 2025.

The gap between the two approaches is the whole story. Brussels asks who the supplier is, so a European factory is the answer to the question. Washington now asks where the box was made, so a European factory is the problem. Chinese manufacturers hold roughly 80 percent of the global inverter market, and both capitals are aiming at that number, but only one of them is doing it in a way that a European producer can satisfy by being European.

Two questions where there used to be one

Procurement teams have spent two years learning to ask one question about grid-connected hardware: who made it. That question still answers the European test and it no longer answers the American one. If your organisation buys inverters, battery inverters or mobile robots, the record you need against each asset is now the country of manufacture as well as the vendor, and the two can differ for the same product line.

If your organisation sells any of this into the United States, the work is different and it is dated. New models need either US production or a Conditional Approval before an authorization application will pass certification, and the queue for those approvals starts now rather than when the first rejection arrives. Existing authorized models keep selling, which buys time and hides the deadline.

Frequently asked questions

Does this affect inverters and robots already installed?

No. The prohibition operates on equipment authorizations, which a device needs before it can be imported, marketed or sold. Models already authorized are not withdrawn, and hardware already in service is untouched. The constraint applies to new models seeking authorization.

Is the restriction limited to Chinese manufacturers?

It is not. The inverter determination covers units produced in a foreign country regardless of the nationality of the producer, and the robotics determination covers all foreign-produced advanced robotic devices. The Bureau stated that the newly-covered equipment is identified by place of production, not by entity, which is what separates these two lines from every earlier entry on the Covered List.

Can a European manufacturer still supply the US market?

Yes, through one of two routes. It can produce in the United States, or it can request a Conditional Approval for the device or class of devices. For inverters the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security evaluates the request; for advanced robotic devices only the Department of War does. Until an approval is granted, a new model cannot obtain an equipment authorization.

The rule that mattered for five years was the name on the box. It is now the address on the label, and that is a change European manufacturers did not spend those five years preparing for.

FCCCovered Listpower invertersroboticsgrid securitysupply chainEuropean Commission

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