As we work half-assed with one hand tied behind our backs on not killing the planet, solar power has become an important part of energy infrastructure solutions around the world. You'll find panels doing their photovoltaic thing on the rooftops of houses and bolted to the roof racks of RVs. Perhaps most importantly, energy producers and governments have been building vast solar farms spanning hundreds of acres. Utility-scale solar farms can produce enough juice to power a city.
You know, unless the Chinese government decides to make the panels inoperable during a hostile action against the USA.
Chinese "kill switches" that could allow Beijing to cripple power grids and trigger blackouts across the West were found in equipment at US solar farms earlier this month, raising fears that China could manipulate supplies or 'physically destroy' grids across the US, UK and Europe. US energy officials re-assessed the risk posed by small communication devices in power inverters – an integral component of renewable energy systems that connects them to the power grid.
US experts found rogue communication devices in some solar power inverters not listed in product documents, Reuters reported citing sources.
Using these devices to skirt firewalls and switch off inverters remotely, or change their settings, could destabilize power grids, damage energy infrastructure and trigger widespread blackouts. The discovery has sparked concerns that Beijing could potentially disrupt power grids in Western nations, given the heavy reliance of renewable energy systems on Chinese-manufactured components.
So yeah, that's a problem. Provided the folks reporting on this issue are correct, were we in a conflict with China — or even just for s*&ts and giggles — it would be possible for National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China to turn off our juice by pushing a big, red button. Doing so could create relatively minor issues, such as creating brownouts or disrupting traffic lights, ATM machines and grocery stores. You know, chaos. It could also be used as a precursor to a larger attack on American infrastructure and population centers. And it's not just in solar panels. According to the Economic Times, other electrical hardware made in China, such as inverter systems and batteries, have proven compromised by hidden parts and devices squirrelled away in their guts.
In many cases, utility companies have strong firewall protections to keep their infrastructure from being screwed with remotely. But if we're just finding weird kill switch and cellular hardware inside of energy tech now, it begs the question: what sneaky shit have we missed?
