The United States electrical grid confronts unprecedented challenges from surging demand, cybersecurity threats, and climate-related disruptions. This paper presents a comprehensive strategic framework for grid modernization organized around three interdependent pillars: technological innovation and deployment, regulatory reform and workforce development, and strategic public-private partnerships. Through detailed analysis of legal barriers, including federal-state jurisdictional conflicts under the Federal Power Act, transmission siting authority limitations, and cybersecurity regulatory gaps, we identify specific legislative and regulatory instruments required for implementation.

The framework proposes establishing a Federal Grid Modernization Authority with hybrid public-private governance structures, incorporating risk-sharing mechanisms and performance-based incentives. Economic analysis demonstrates that proactive modernization investments of $300-400 billion over ten years compare favorably with an estimated $1 trillion in expected costs of continued underinvestment over the same period, giving an illustrative benefit-cost ratio of 4.4:1. Drawing on comparative international analysis and synthesizing current policy gaps, our phased implementation strategy projects that achieving 80% renewable integration, 99.97% grid reliability, and elimination of foreign dependency for critical components is feasible within a ten-year horizon given appropriate policy support and investment frameworks.

© The Author(s) 2025. Published by RITHA Publishing. This article is distributed under the terms of the license CC-BY 4.0., which permits any further distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited maintaining attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and URL DOI.

Article’s history: Received 27th September, 2025; Revised 18th October, 2025; Accepted for publication 8th November, 2025; Available online: 18th November, 2025. Published as research article in Volume I, Issue 2(2), 2025 

Parsons, N. (2025). Strategic Grid Modernization for Enhanced Energy Security and Industrial Competitiveness: A Multi-Pillar Framework for the United States. Applied Journal of Economics, Law and Governance, Volume 1, Issue 2(2), 149-171. https://doi.org/10.57017/ajelg.v1.i2(2).03

CRediT Authorship Contribution Statement: Noah Parsons: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Author Approval: The author has reviewed and approved the final manuscript and assumes full responsibility for its content and integrity.

Acknowledgements: The author gratefully acknowledges the American Forge Institute for supporting this research.​ All views expressed remain solely those of the author.

Funding: There is no funding agency of this research as the author receives no grant from any institutions.

Conflict of Interest Statement: The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement: The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available from government sources including the US Energy Information Administration (https://www.eia.gov), Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (https://www.ferc.gov), Department of Energy (https://www.energy.gov), North American Electric Reliability Corporation (https://www.nerc.com), and International Energy Agency (https://www.iea.org). All data sources are cited in the References section.