Posted on 05/14/2025 4:43:53 PM PDT by george76
Undisclosed communication devices reportedly discovered in Chinese-manufactured solar panels and related equipment have sparked concerns among U.S. officials about the vulnerability of the nation’s power grid, according to a Reuters report.
These “rogue” devices, found over the past nine months, could potentially destabilize energy infrastructure and trigger widespread blackouts, sources familiar with the matter told the outlet.
The undocumented devices, including cellular radios, were identified in solar power inverters, batteries, electric vehicle chargers, and heat pumps produced by several Chinese suppliers.
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The U.S. has found Trojan horse communication devices in Chinese-made solar power inverters. They are used to connect solar panels to electricity grids.
The devices could be turned out remotely to destabilize energy grids, potentially leading to massive blackouts like the recent one in Spain.
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U.S. experts uncovered the components during security inspections of renewable energy equipment, prompting a reevaluation of the risks posed by these products.
Inverters, critical for connecting solar panels and wind turbines to the power grid, are predominantly manufactured in China, amplifying concerns about their security.
“We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption,” said Mike Rogers, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency.
“I think that the Chinese are, in part, hoping that the widespread use of inverters limits the options that the West has to deal with the security issue,” Roger’s further urged.
Experts warn that these rogue devices could bypass firewalls, allowing remote manipulation of inverter settings or even complete shutdowns.
Such actions could disrupt power grids, damage energy infrastructure, and cause blackouts.
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“That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid,” another source told Reuters.
The discovery adds to long-standing warnings from energy and security experts about the risks of relying on Chinese-made green energy products.
Concerns over espionage and sabotage have grown as the U.S. continues to integrate these technologies into its energy systems.
In December 2023, Republican officials, including former Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher and then-Senator Marco Rubio, urged Duke Energy to discontinue using Chinese-manufactured CATL batteries at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, citing surveillance risks.
“Directly following our inquiry, Duke disconnected the Chinese-manufactured systems from the grid,” Gallagher and Rubio stated in a February 2024 press release.
“Others that continue to work with CATL, and other companies under the control of the CCP, should take note,” they added.
The Department of Energy (DOE) acknowledged the issue, with a spokesperson telling Reuters that the department continuously assesses risks associated with new technologies.
“While this functionality may not have malicious intent, it is critical for those procuring to have a full understanding of the capabilities of the products received,” the spokesperson said.
The DOE is working to strengthen domestic supply chains and improve transparency through initiatives like the “Software Bill of Materials,” which inventories all components in software applications.
EXACTLY! .. If we're just going to beat around the bush on this then we're suckers and deserve everything we get.
Pearl Harbor Freight.
Rumor is the devices are activated from equipment hidden on a weather balloon.
That means it is already too late.
Exactly!
Any retard moron stupid ass could have told the world this. Which means we are a nation of greedy, cheap, stupid sub moron, below retard crapitalist scum losers. And this is one of many ways we will lose. Weakness and decadence and the 7 deadly sins are a bad combination to possess when going to war.
Who couldn’t see something like this coming? Idiot grifters in government; that’s who. 😡
Exactly!!
Why are we so stupid to broadcast EVERYTHING!!!!
Dirty Chinese; they’re not to be trusted for ANYTHING!
They are smart and evil.
Send the 300k Chinese college students home, rebuild our critical supply chains as fast as possible, and decouple as soon as possible.
Oh yes sir!
I am so gonna swipe that and lay it on a couple of guys I know...
:-)
.
Very interesting.
I had my solar inverter pentested and it’s now behind a firewall so can’t dial out to China and can’t receive inbound communications. I’ve replaced the datalogger with a Raspberry Pi and modbus providing local monitoring and configuration management.
That’s all basic stuff from an IoT cyber security standpoint, and I know my way round nist, cisa, IEC 62443 etc.
So I was baffled at the news about the current administration pulling funding from Cyber threat intelligence. On no planet does it make sense to ignore the fact that threats are constantly evolving. Emerging risks / exploits could be from China, North Korea, Russia - or injected by malicious insiders, disgruntled suppliers...
The idea you should just drop the detective effort because it might upset Xi or Putin if they’re implicated by the results is ridiculous.
Sounds like a good plan that we could probably accomplish. If they(the Chinese) are going to play like that, they need to pay the price. I still think the best plan would have been needed to be implemented many years ago....No trade with the Chinese.
To clarify about my prior post, I didn't mean to say that a hybrid inverter is a communication gateway between the solar panels and the grid or electrical panels or batteries. I meant that since all power from the solar panels comes through my inverters, the solar panels can't put dirty power onto the grid nor do the solar panels feed indirectly to the grid (by my inverters feeding my electrical panels without care how much excess power automatically goes onto the grid behind the electrical panels).
When my first inverter was installed, part of the installation process was to disconnect the meter from my electrical panels and feed the grid directly to the inverter. After having a small system for a year (I call it Phase I) and exporting the inverter's telemetry to a TSQL DB and querying the stew out of it, I upgraded my solar system (Phase II) to 20kW solar, 90kWh battery, and two inverters totaling 18kW continuous AC power. Now that I have two inverters, both of the inverters are tied to the grid, both inverters are tied to the electrical panels, and both inverters are tied to the battery stack (with both inverters working in parallel for all 3 of those end points). The only way the inverters work separately is with the incoming power from solar panels coming on multiple inverter strings, with each inverter receiving half of the strings/solar panels.
Back to the main point of this thread. Yours and my solar systems are for decentralized power, not really to power the grid. Engineers at Alabama Power don't wake up in the morning hoping they get power from my solar panels. So a China hack of decentralized solar panels can't mess the grid up. It's solar farms made for the grid that have the potential problem (if the grid engineers depend on that power). I'm 100% against the grid depending on solar or wind. The only way I can support solar farms for the grid is if we have a backup hydrocarbon fueled plant that we can fire up at night or when it rains (with the idea being that the solar farms reduce our hydrocarbon fuel costs, assuming that's enough fuel cost to make the solar farm feasible).
How much did the Biden Mafia get paid to allow this ???
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