5 ms·

Not quite the same, a solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance.

by Weryj 5mo ago

fragmede 5mo ago
Not the panel itself, but the firmware of the solar panel charge controller and inverter that's connected to the Internet because there's an app to monitor the system. I wouldn't bet that there aren't remote kill switches deep inside that firmware.
- interstice 5mo ago
  The panels and controllers are mostly interchangeable are they not?
- firebot 5mo ago
  They've found some of those in the wild. They weren't that deep.
  - JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
    Source?
    - leonidasrup 5mo ago
      https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-machine-rogue-communication-devices-found-chinese-inverters-2025-05-14/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-... "However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said. Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said." It would not suprise me if not only Chinese manufacurers did this. Cellular modems are cheap and and the capability to cause blackout is very usefull.
- cybercatgurrl 5mo ago
  this is where the real risk is. nobody can stop you from directly tapping the panel’s power but an inverter can potentially be bricked if it has internet. this is more an issue with residential than industrial. i would hope that all industrial panels are air-gapped specifically to pre-empt this scenario
JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
> solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance Most countries have days to, at most, months of imports of oil in reserve. In contrast, a panel embargo wouldn’t have disastrous effects for years. But reliance it is the same. If you’re dependent on Chinese panels, China can cap your energy growth at whim. The degradation will be slow thereafter, but present nevertheless. Using foreign panels for anything other than bootstrapping domestic or allied production would be the EU repeating its follies first with Russia and then with American LNG.
- dv_dt 5mo ago
  Stopping new panels in some hypothetical scenario is very different than stopping fossil fuel delivery when ch can stop ongoing energy production - it not even in the same timescale of problem
- torpfactory 5mo ago
  What are the alternatives for Europe? Continue to import oil and gas? Have some of your most important economic inputs price and supply controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs alive? Nuclear? Good luck building it on time and on budget. Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from? I’m not necessarily against nuclear I just don’t think there’s much you can do in five or ten years to move the needle with Nuclear. Wind? Actually a good option as it has a strong domestic supply chain. Solar? Buy China’s cheap panels as long as they are selling. If they stop selling figure out how to do it yourself. It’s not some big mystery how panels get made, China just had the foresight to invest in the scale required to drive prices down. Coal? I mean at least it’s local. But solar + batteries are either beating it now or will be in the next few years if the same trends that have held for the last 30 years continue for the next 2-5. So you’d be investing in a more expensive, dirtier technology for what end? There is no world where you get to not make a decision and the risk just disappears. I think renewables have the clear advantage here and have very manageable risks.
  - pyrale 5mo ago
    > Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from? Uranium can be stockpiled relatively easily (france had 4-5 years of uranium stockpiled). Since it is about 1% of the energy cost, that’s pretty inexpensive. Also, uranium comes from suppliers on 4 different continents, there is little chance that it becomes unavailable overnight.
gostsamo 5mo ago
It can stop working properly if the chinese panel is encryption locked to a chinese cloud which is the case with many residential installations.
- XorNot 5mo ago
  My Chinese built inverter functions just fine without Internet, but I'd have to take over doing what Amber Energy are doing if I lost access to the cloud. But that's residential scale: at grid scale these things wouldn't be online in the same way anyway.
  - gostsamo 5mo ago
    and what if they can use your inverter to destabilize not only your netwrok, but the local grit as well? and how far it can go if sychrnoized with malicious intend?
- riskd 5mo ago
  Source?
- bluGill 5mo ago
  Panels can be opened and are simple enough for a tech to bypass the encryption.
- cybercatgurrl 5mo ago
  encryption isn’t gonna do shit to stop you from directly connecting to the anode and cathode on a panel. it would be incredibly trivial to bypass
mcbishop 5mo ago
But there is some valid concern around internet-connected PV / battery power electronics getting bricked remotely.
- adrian_b 5mo ago
  Power electronics shall never be connected to the "Internet". Any such installations of solar panels, batteries and the like must be interconnected only in a private network without Internet access. For remote monitoring and control a proxy mini-PC must be used, to which one should use an authenticated and encrypted connection. For any competent person, this is trivial to do today, to ensure that even if some electronic device includes a backdoor for its vendor that backdoor cannot be accessed. If there exists any kind of wireless connection provided by the vendor for a device, it must be disabled, e.g. by removing any internal or external antennas. Unlike wired connections that can be filtered externally, wireless connections cannot be secured.

Not quite the same, a solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance.

by Weryj 5mo ago

Not quite the same, a solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance.

Not the panel itself, but the firmware of the solar panel charge controller and inverter that's connected to the Internet because there's an app to monitor the system. I wouldn't bet that there aren't remote kill switches deep inside that firmware.

interstice 5mo ago
The panels and controllers are mostly interchangeable are they not?
firebot 5mo ago
They've found some of those in the wild. They weren't that deep.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  Source?
  - leonidasrup 5mo ago
    https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-machine-rogue-communication-devices-found-chinese-inverters-2025-05-14/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ghost-... "However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said. Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said." It would not suprise me if not only Chinese manufacurers did this. Cellular modems are cheap and and the capability to cause blackout is very usefull.
cybercatgurrl 5mo ago
this is where the real risk is. nobody can stop you from directly tapping the panel’s power but an inverter can potentially be bricked if it has internet. this is more an issue with residential than industrial. i would hope that all industrial panels are air-gapped specifically to pre-empt this scenario

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago

> solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance Most countries have days to, at most, months of imports of oil in reserve. In contrast, a panel embargo wouldn’t have disastrous effects for years. But reliance it is the same. If you’re dependent on Chinese panels, China can cap your energy growth at whim. The degradation will be slow thereafter, but present nevertheless. Using foreign panels for anything other than bootstrapping domestic or allied production would be the EU repeating its follies first with Russia and then with American LNG.

dv_dt 5mo ago
Stopping new panels in some hypothetical scenario is very different than stopping fossil fuel delivery when ch can stop ongoing energy production - it not even in the same timescale of problem
torpfactory 5mo ago
What are the alternatives for Europe? Continue to import oil and gas? Have some of your most important economic inputs price and supply controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs alive? Nuclear? Good luck building it on time and on budget. Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from? I’m not necessarily against nuclear I just don’t think there’s much you can do in five or ten years to move the needle with Nuclear. Wind? Actually a good option as it has a strong domestic supply chain. Solar? Buy China’s cheap panels as long as they are selling. If they stop selling figure out how to do it yourself. It’s not some big mystery how panels get made, China just had the foresight to invest in the scale required to drive prices down. Coal? I mean at least it’s local. But solar + batteries are either beating it now or will be in the next few years if the same trends that have held for the last 30 years continue for the next 2-5. So you’d be investing in a more expensive, dirtier technology for what end? There is no world where you get to not make a decision and the risk just disappears. I think renewables have the clear advantage here and have very manageable risks.
- pyrale 5mo ago
  > Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from? Uranium can be stockpiled relatively easily (france had 4-5 years of uranium stockpiled). Since it is about 1% of the energy cost, that’s pretty inexpensive. Also, uranium comes from suppliers on 4 different continents, there is little chance that it becomes unavailable overnight.

gostsamo 5mo ago

It can stop working properly if the chinese panel is encryption locked to a chinese cloud which is the case with many residential installations.

XorNot 5mo ago
My Chinese built inverter functions just fine without Internet, but I'd have to take over doing what Amber Energy are doing if I lost access to the cloud. But that's residential scale: at grid scale these things wouldn't be online in the same way anyway.
- gostsamo 5mo ago
  and what if they can use your inverter to destabilize not only your netwrok, but the local grit as well? and how far it can go if sychrnoized with malicious intend?
riskd 5mo ago
Source?
bluGill 5mo ago
Panels can be opened and are simple enough for a tech to bypass the encryption.
cybercatgurrl 5mo ago
encryption isn’t gonna do shit to stop you from directly connecting to the anode and cathode on a panel. it would be incredibly trivial to bypass

mcbishop 5mo ago

But there is some valid concern around internet-connected PV / battery power electronics getting bricked remotely.

adrian_b 5mo ago
Power electronics shall never be connected to the "Internet". Any such installations of solar panels, batteries and the like must be interconnected only in a private network without Internet access. For remote monitoring and control a proxy mini-PC must be used, to which one should use an authenticated and encrypted connection. For any competent person, this is trivial to do today, to ensure that even if some electronic device includes a backdoor for its vendor that backdoor cannot be accessed. If there exists any kind of wireless connection provided by the vendor for a device, it must be disabled, e.g. by removing any internal or external antennas. Unlike wired connections that can be filtered externally, wireless connections cannot be secured.