Power inverters can be found in solar panels and wind turbines that are connected to the electricity grid as well as batteries, heat pumps, and electric vehicle chargers. Mainly produced in China, firewalls are installed in the U.S., in order to hinder communication and protect information from returning back to China. Unfortunately, undocumented communication devices have been recovered in a multitude of different Chinese-manufactured batteries and solar power inverters that bypass the protection insured by security measures.
Larry Behrens of Power the Future says it should be examined as to whether there are massive amounts of unauthorized communication devices within solar panel systems in the United States.
"We are hearing that energy executives have found unauthorized cellular radios that are meant to bypass firewalls for utilities and allow these paddles or these controls for these panels to speak directly outside of any types of protocols, and so obviously that is inherently dangerous given how many solar panels have been installed in the country over the last 10 years and what it could do to our electric grid," Behrens states.
Negative outcomes resulting from such violation of national security could undermine the power grid, hurt energy infrastructure, and prompt widespread blackouts. With the U.S. government yet to publicly addressed these devices, the U.S Department of Energy’s (DOE) only comment reaffirmed their work in assessing the risk of new technology with challenges provided by manufacturers not providing all the information for their products.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided tax credits and incentives for domestic production of solar panels. Chinese companies were eligible for these same benefits. Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) expresses how China has been trying to work a way around U.S. laws to upstage the solar industry in America. The result of such work harms U.S. national security and energy independence.
Behrens comments about the saddest part of the issue, "Imagine if there is a nefarious component to this, and yet the Chinese government has not only planted them in the United States, they made money off planting them in the United States."
A former director of the U.S. National Security Agency, Mike Rogers states, "We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption."
In order to mitigate security vulnerability, the Decoupling from Foreign Adversarial Battery Dependence Act has been introduced by two U.S. senators in February to deter Homeland Security from acquiring batteries from Chinese organizations as of October 2027. The bill remains in committee after being submitted on March 11 to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
