World War II grid orders (1941-1945)
The Federal Power Commission used Section 202(c) for the first time months before Pearl Harbor, then 21 more times during the war to compel utilities to share generation for aluminum smelters, shipyards, and weapons plants. The orders moved electricity across utility territories that, at the time, rarely cooperated.
The orders kept war production on schedule and built the early habits of cross-utility coordination that became today's regional grids.
Section 202(c) sat largely unused after the war. It was invoked seven times between 1945 and 1977 and zero times from 1977 to 2000.
The current orders use the same statute Congress wrote for industrial mobilization. The change is in interpretation, not law: forecast summer demand now counts as an emergency.