while I totally understand the risk of foreign hardware and firmware, this is exclusively a sabotage of green power development confirmed by the methodology and speed of implementation of it.
blocking related projects by forcing a supply chain re-co figuration and disconnect from grid for non compliancy it's a clear targeted sabotage and does not mitigate the risk! -> us produced inverter with asian chips and firmware anyway!
this is only devolution and it can happen only there, especially WITHOUT a clear transition or migration plan that considers hardware, industry and infrastructure!
if more power is needed, and power costs are increasing, why force disconnect and sabotage development for green power? dont forget to do 1+1 with the reality of your state dear citizens!
Counterpoint - building out even more critical infrastructure which might as well be coming pre-rootkitted by a known foreign adversary seems quite dumb?
nope, that's the defacto standard for the past 30 years and I was against it for security reasons, it was not dumb it was convenient in times of peace for many!
so I agree if my country would produce and enforce usage of country developed inverters with a correct and ramp up plan to reach that.
but hard cutting it without having the infrastructure and market ready to compensate that is just full "rword"ness.
and then there will be still parts of boards and chips coming anyway from external suppliers and being "fake" ?
what about the real crit infra beside solar and wind? what about the supply chain there? fully localized? 3rd party and 4th party fully audited?
If they could prohibit internet communications and allow LAN communications, that would be great.
Also, it should apply regardless of where they are manufactured. It's far more likely for an attack to happen through a compromised centralized server, or a worm compromising embedded servers en masse, than it is for an authority to directly petition an attack.
Also, my inverter wasn't manufactured in China, but the Wi-Fi module was made by Shanghai MXCHIP Information Technology Co., so it's no less vulnerable.
Can someone more familiar with the technology explain how necessary it is for the inverter to be internet connected? This seems like the kind of cloud dependency that people on HN would usually be opposed to.
A small solar inverter doesn't need to be internet connected, but solar inverter app monitoring lets you track energy production, view real-time power flows, and check device status using a smartphone or tablet. So automaticaly you could get all the IoT security issues.
Large solar invertors at large solar plants muss be under remote controling of grid operators, to allow solar curtailment when the solar production exceeds electric demand or grid transmission could be overloaded. This is not specific to solar power plants, other kinds of power plants are also under control of grid operators.
With increased deployment of residential solar its possible that this controlling will be extented also to residential solar.
My solar production data is fed to my ISO so I can sell clean energy vouchers. My solar installer just called me the other day asking if I had a tree shading a panel, because production on that panel was low. There are plenty of reasons to have internet connected solar equipment.
With sufficiently badly designed systems (lack of sufficient manual interlocks), it should also be possible to cause co-ordinated widespread fires and property damage or the like, with resulting loss of life.
There was a good grid generator demonstration years ago (aurora generator cyber attack), and most cheap inverters are likely even dumber than what was demonstrated there.
Likely? Probably not with current geopolitics.
Possible? Hard to say, but certainly unlikely to be completely impossible.
Security being the S in IoT and all, and most of these inverter stacks are pretty typical of IoT.
> A small solar inverter doesn't need to be internet connected, but solar inverter app monitoring lets you track energy production, view real-time power flows, and check device status using a smartphone or tablet
... over USB or Bluetooth. Internet is solely for convenience.
Not like the threat was in the room with us this entire time.
Looking at all those APC UPSes that had the TLSstorm exploit and possibility of actual burnout and fire...
But sure. It's the evil evil Chinese shit that's the problem.
I feel so much safer knowing we banned things like Autel's drones, random power inverters, and Unitree robots, but not Autel's key programmers kids are using to steal cars!
Funny thing searching "autel teenager stolen cars" and seeing hundreds of police releases of kids getting busted with guns and Autel tablets and a shitton of universally programmable keys. I feel so much safer knowing the Chinese drones can't spy on me while the kids steal my car. :)
It's nonsense and there's no pretense, no data otherwise. The party of drill baby drill isn't about better power, about using mineral rights: it's about crony-istic state control of industry, about vested interests, about bribery corruption and grift for insiders. (That and/or they are actively trying to destroy the country wholesale, are barbarians within seeking only to destroy.)
I do think there is one step I'd like to see the world take in reply, that would make this be much funnier: "we don't ship the software, you have to run that yourself". Start an open source Zephyr IoT project for inverters, and just don't distribute the software. Make people just buy the hardware. I for one welcome the world where the two come separate. I think it would be a remarkable upgrade for humanity to decouple the two, and it would be bitterly hilarious if these batshit loons somehow end up accidentally creating the better world. I can't think of what other reply would have anywhere near the force of effect of making absolute mock, and it would radically improve things. This should happen.
1. Solar may be cheaper on average, but the Trump admin wouldn’t have to be banning companies from pursuing wind and rescinding wind leases that companies had chosen to purchase (as GP commenter linked) if companies didn’t think wind was a way to generate electricity that could also generate a profit.
2. Combining wind with other forms of renewables can also be an excellent option as wind can also generate electricity at night, in more northern climates, etc.
while I totally understand the risk of foreign hardware and firmware, this is exclusively a sabotage of green power development confirmed by the methodology and speed of implementation of it.
blocking related projects by forcing a supply chain re-co figuration and disconnect from grid for non compliancy it's a clear targeted sabotage and does not mitigate the risk! -> us produced inverter with asian chips and firmware anyway!
this is only devolution and it can happen only there, especially WITHOUT a clear transition or migration plan that considers hardware, industry and infrastructure!
if more power is needed, and power costs are increasing, why force disconnect and sabotage development for green power? dont forget to do 1+1 with the reality of your state dear citizens!
Counterpoint - building out even more critical infrastructure which might as well be coming pre-rootkitted by a known foreign adversary seems quite dumb?
nope, that's the defacto standard for the past 30 years and I was against it for security reasons, it was not dumb it was convenient in times of peace for many!
so I agree if my country would produce and enforce usage of country developed inverters with a correct and ramp up plan to reach that.
but hard cutting it without having the infrastructure and market ready to compensate that is just full "rword"ness.
and then there will be still parts of boards and chips coming anyway from external suppliers and being "fake" ?
what about the real crit infra beside solar and wind? what about the supply chain there? fully localized? 3rd party and 4th party fully audited?
is just a joke
there's no evidence for the countpoint; so it's mostly counterparanoia.
If they could prohibit internet communications and allow LAN communications, that would be great.
Also, it should apply regardless of where they are manufactured. It's far more likely for an attack to happen through a compromised centralized server, or a worm compromising embedded servers en masse, than it is for an authority to directly petition an attack.
Also, my inverter wasn't manufactured in China, but the Wi-Fi module was made by Shanghai MXCHIP Information Technology Co., so it's no less vulnerable.
Can someone more familiar with the technology explain how necessary it is for the inverter to be internet connected? This seems like the kind of cloud dependency that people on HN would usually be opposed to.
A small solar inverter doesn't need to be internet connected, but solar inverter app monitoring lets you track energy production, view real-time power flows, and check device status using a smartphone or tablet. So automaticaly you could get all the IoT security issues.
https://solar-assistant.io/
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/solarman-smart/id1469487897
If an attacker could control a significant portion of solar inverters in a solar dominated grid, he could cause an blackout, under right conditions.
More in presentations at CCC:
"How to cause blackout"
https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7323-wie_man_einen_blackout_veru...
"BlinkenCity: Radio-Controlling Street Lamps and Power Plants"
https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-blinkencity-radio-controlling-st...
Large solar invertors at large solar plants muss be under remote controling of grid operators, to allow solar curtailment when the solar production exceeds electric demand or grid transmission could be overloaded. This is not specific to solar power plants, other kinds of power plants are also under control of grid operators.
With increased deployment of residential solar its possible that this controlling will be extented also to residential solar.
None of this requires internet connection.
How do you expect your typical mobile app to work through NAT, etc. without an internet connection? For your typical ‘dumb’ home user, anyway?
It should not. There is exactly zero reason for all this data to leave the premises.
> For your typical ‘dumb’ home user
Well, yeah. That's the problem. There is no explanation to the dumb user why this stat is only available while connected to home network.
My solar production data is fed to my ISO so I can sell clean energy vouchers. My solar installer just called me the other day asking if I had a tree shading a panel, because production on that panel was low. There are plenty of reasons to have internet connected solar equipment.
Outbound connection to your provider with stats? Good.
Random connection to any IP especially on China territory? Absolutely not.
Regardless of broadband existing or not, there was never supposed to be an abscence of dial-up.
With sufficiently badly designed systems (lack of sufficient manual interlocks), it should also be possible to cause co-ordinated widespread fires and property damage or the like, with resulting loss of life.
There was a good grid generator demonstration years ago (aurora generator cyber attack), and most cheap inverters are likely even dumber than what was demonstrated there.
Likely? Probably not with current geopolitics.
Possible? Hard to say, but certainly unlikely to be completely impossible.
Security being the S in IoT and all, and most of these inverter stacks are pretty typical of IoT.
> A small solar inverter doesn't need to be internet connected, but solar inverter app monitoring lets you track energy production, view real-time power flows, and check device status using a smartphone or tablet
... over USB or Bluetooth. Internet is solely for convenience.
So is 90% of everything we use the internet for.
It’s also possible to pay my bills via check sent via USPS (for now), but I bet at least 80% of your typical utility customers use the online portal.
So is 90% of everything attackers use the internet for.
And re loss from an attack, your bill payment is not comparable to a solar inverter.
Yeah, it’s easier to drain my bank account than explode a random inverter (probably).
And one of them gets them paid.
Smart inverters allow energy companies to reduce the solar power sent to the grid to improve grid stability, avoid overload conditions etc.
Its sold to consumers as stats & diagnostics. Companies do this to sell your data and in hopes of roping you into recurring revenue schemes.
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What the hell does the FCC have to do witb power inverters? Dont they have some drone pilots to harass or something?
Not like the threat was in the room with us this entire time.
Looking at all those APC UPSes that had the TLSstorm exploit and possibility of actual burnout and fire...
But sure. It's the evil evil Chinese shit that's the problem.
I feel so much safer knowing we banned things like Autel's drones, random power inverters, and Unitree robots, but not Autel's key programmers kids are using to steal cars!
Funny thing searching "autel teenager stolen cars" and seeing hundreds of police releases of kids getting busted with guns and Autel tablets and a shitton of universally programmable keys. I feel so much safer knowing the Chinese drones can't spy on me while the kids steal my car. :)
i mean at least you can sue apc
> prove their code cannot be manipulated remotely
That's not technically possible, surely.
Absolute cowardice & wanton destruction of the world, this. This is just a political ploy, on no merit, and it's the same anything-and-everything as the administration pulled to prevent cheap, effective, capable wind power from happening. https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-national-secu... https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/wind/states-lawsuit-tru...
It's nonsense and there's no pretense, no data otherwise. The party of drill baby drill isn't about better power, about using mineral rights: it's about crony-istic state control of industry, about vested interests, about bribery corruption and grift for insiders. (That and/or they are actively trying to destroy the country wholesale, are barbarians within seeking only to destroy.)
I do think there is one step I'd like to see the world take in reply, that would make this be much funnier: "we don't ship the software, you have to run that yourself". Start an open source Zephyr IoT project for inverters, and just don't distribute the software. Make people just buy the hardware. I for one welcome the world where the two come separate. I think it would be a remarkable upgrade for humanity to decouple the two, and it would be bitterly hilarious if these batshit loons somehow end up accidentally creating the better world. I can't think of what other reply would have anywhere near the force of effect of making absolute mock, and it would radically improve things. This should happen.
I would not call offshore wind cheap, as can bee seen in Germany in the 2025 Germany's No-Subsidy Offshore Wind Auction.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2025/08/06/germanys-2-5-gw-offs...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/analyzing-failure-germanys-no...
Private investors are currently not willing to invest into offshore wind at market pricing.
Solar is much cheaper.
1. Solar may be cheaper on average, but the Trump admin wouldn’t have to be banning companies from pursuing wind and rescinding wind leases that companies had chosen to purchase (as GP commenter linked) if companies didn’t think wind was a way to generate electricity that could also generate a profit.
2. Combining wind with other forms of renewables can also be an excellent option as wind can also generate electricity at night, in more northern climates, etc.
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We've finally imported European style technology regulation
Eh, European tech regulation at very least has some sane steelman published and documented, even if we personally disagree with that reasoning.