Audrey Streb
Contributor
Officials are reportedly reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices found in solar panels that are capable of damaging the energy infrastructure, destabilizing the power grid and triggering widespread blackouts.
Over the past nine months, “rogue communication devices” not listed in product documents were found in solar power inverters and batteries from several Chinese suppliers, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with Reuters. The undocumented devices were found after U.S. experts disassembled the renewable energy equipment to check for security issues, prompting officials to review the potential dangers of the Chinese-made devices, according to the publication. (RELATED: NYT Columnist Gushes Over China’s ‘Green Transition’ Without Once Mentioning It’s Fueled By Slave Labor)
“We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption,” Mike Rogers, a former director of the U.S. National Security Agency, told Reuters. “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.
The communication devices were reportedly found in power inverters, which are used to connect solar panels and wind turbines to the power grid and are often produced in China. They are also found in electric vehicle chargers, batteries and heat pumps. Undocumented cellular radios were also found in Chinese-manufactured batteries, according to the publication.
If the rogue communication devices found in the inverters are used to circumnavigate firewalls and change the settings or turn off inverters remotely, this could destabilize power grids, damage energy technology and prompt blackouts, according to experts who spoke with Reuters.
“That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid,” one of the sources told the publication.
For years, energy and security experts have cautioned that reliance on Chinese products for green energy could expose the U.S. to espionage and security risks. (RELATED: Chinese Hackers Have Been Feasting On Key US Infrastructure On Biden’s Watch)
A spokesperson for the Department of Energy (DOE) told Reuters that it continually evaluates risks involving new technology and that “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.”
“As more domestic manufacturing takes hold, DOE is working across the federal government to strengthen U.S. supply chains, providing additional opportunities to integrate trusted equipment into the power grid,” the spokesperson continued, noting that the department is working to address any missing disclosure information through “Software Bill of Materials” or inventories of all the parts that make up a software application, in addition to other contract requirements.
“We oppose the generalisation [sic] of the concept of national security, distorting and smearing China’s infrastructure achievements,” a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told Reuters.
Republican officials sent a letter advising an American energy company to stop using Chinese-manufactured batteries due to the security risks in December 2023, according to a February 2024 statement.
“We approached Duke Energy regarding its use of Chinese-manufactured CATL batteries and network-equipped systems, which posed an unacceptable surveillance risk at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina — the largest Marine Base in the United States. Directly following our inquiry, Duke disconnected the Chinese-manufactured systems from the grid,” former Republican Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator for the state of Florida at the time, wrote in the press release. “Others that continue to work with CATL, and other companies under the control of the CCP, should take note,” they continued.
DOE, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, the White House and the Chinese embassy did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for confirmation or comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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Sum Ting Wong.
Wan Hang Lo
Xi-Za Fuc Yu
“Send him to Detroit!”
I remember it sounding more as “Send him to Detwoit!”
Nice to see a KFM reference.
Well, I am not at all surprised. Fact is, we should have NOTHING to do with China in any way, shape, or form.
No, this should not be a surprise. I imagine the Chicoms are installing such spy devices in all their equipment. We should assume they are.
Including all the cars they make.
I’d like to see a photo of several of the devices along with a diagram of how they connect to the inverter and whether there was a legitimate reason for the device. The answer to that last may be “no” but if it served another, legitimate, purpose, I’d like to know that.
I agree with that too.
There’s also the question of exactly how they communicate. Do they scan all nearby WiFi points for backdoors or default passwords? Are they fake cell phones and who do they call? Do they send weak signals to Chinese satellites?
I have a gizmo in my safe that sends an SMS when it detects light or motion, but it requires a $50/year (I think) subscription for the cell service, and it is not a full-fledged cell phone, just a very low end SMS sender. Can’t even receive SMS.
TANSTAFC.
THe article never specifies wireless – so I assumed you’d need a JTAG dongle and a laptop.
The Reuters piece indicated that service/maintenance functions were built into the panels and batteries, network accessible, but there was more there than necessary for those functions.
Sounds like all this needs is a Reuters “fact check” 😉
Complicated solution to a simple problem.
1) what is the goal
2)what is the best way to get there
There ain’t no such thing as free cupcakes?
That gizmo, very interesting!
If no legitimate reason- it’s almost an act of war.
Solar panel grids are computer controlled so effectively they have a back door into those computer networks using these products.
I’m going to doubt they found anything suspicious UNTIL they can provide some specificity as to exactly what it was they “found”.
What did they find – ZigBee or Bluetooth modules? Embedded WiFi modules? 4G LTE / cell phone comms modules? An RS232 ‘port’ used during factory test? Built-in Self Test (BiST) hardware? Hardware to support Boundary Scan (JTAG) test protocols? WHAT!!!????
WTH – a DOWNVOTE this early in the game? Someone needs to man up and explain that.
DOWNVOTER – do you have ANY experience with factory automated testing? I thought this was a website where a few technical ppl hung out … did I get that wrong?
ANY of you ppl seen the new interfaces provided between smartphones and appliances using BlueTooth for instance? WHAT are the odds these ‘technical sleuths’ doing this investigation aren’t quite as swift as we take them to be …
Jim,
Some good points there. I’d be more than a little surprised if the batteries contained communication modules BEYOND what was advertised in their documentation. These aren’t prototypes being moved out for beta testing, (where some information being sent back to the manufacturer could be good). Any additional comms package costs money. It’s not there by accident.
When buying a commercial product I would not expect it to contain any communications devices that are not advertised. If it did, then who is paying for it and who is benefiting from it being in there?
I would not want to purchase any consumer product that established communications back to base without my approval, whether that be a battery or a car. And again, if it did, WHY?
As you say. What was found? Was it a comms device or a serial port? More info required.
‘I would not want to purchase any consumer product that established communications back to base without my approval, whether that be a battery or a car.’
Wrap it in tinfoil?
Wrap it in tinfoil?
Hey, tinfoil hats worked, right?
A thought comes to mind, MJI drones. Mine forever try to connect me back to their server to upload my media.
DJI?
I agree, we need more technical info. However, The Telegraph says,
Chinese ‘kill switches’ found in US solar farms
Well, of course China has recently been declared to be our new worst enemy, so I suspect all things China will now be nefarious. Careful walking the isles of Walmart and Target.
CCP has always been and will continue to be an enemy of the West, and so long as the CCP requires “co-operation” from Chinese manufacturers so will their industries.
WHY???
Because they say they are at war with Western countries.
Who are “they”? Could you provide a quote?
Those aisles will be getting more barren over the next few weeks…
Apparently not….
I am not your downvoter. However, I am more than willing to “man up” if that is the requirement to not completely agree with all aspects of your comment.
1.) Electrical grids are a key military asset that is almost always targeted shortly after the first-wave attacks.
2.) Any foreign power that could take down the entire U.S. electrical grid in an attack with zero risk to material or human assets would have a tremendous advantage in the event of hostilities.
3.) If a foreign power did actually manage to install an effective “kill switch” on a country’s electrical grid, I would NOT want all of the exact technical details of any discovery to be published in open sources.
YMMV.
#3: Why? The foreign power presumably knows what they installed. Spreading that knowledge is probably the last thing they want the rest of the world to know.
Did we find 100% of the any devices planted?
If we revealed what we did find, and they know what we didn’t find, then they can speculate as to how we detected the devices. Further, they would also know that any technology they used to hide the devices we didn’t find was working well, and they should keep trying to make advancements in that area.
Finally, if we do have absolute proof of military-level spying or control capabilities, why reveal that now? Play your trump cards when they provide the highest value.
There is more than one foreign power in the world. No need to train another foreign power – or a Democrat for that matter – on how easy it is to sabotage our power grid.
Even the US is a foreign power
Not to me it isn’t.
Not a good idea to reveal how much you know or don’t know or how you know it. Elementary.
Wouldn’t anyone in control with many cloud based powerful appliances with a precise clock (can sync on electric network) be able to hit the network with massive spikes by turning all equipment on at the exact the same time?
A valid point, I have seen the term “revealing sources and methods” used in other contexts … however …
The term “rogue communication devices” implies hardware, rather than an embedded “rootkit” awaiting data packets via other “communications channels” (e.g. a “secure” Ethernet cable to an otherwise “compromised” central control room).
The photo at the top of the article shows a solar farm “out in the boonies”. A Zigbee / Bluetooth / Wi-Fi “module” would find nothing to establish a “communications channel” with in those regions.
Including a complete short-wave “ham radio” in each inverter would be … errrrrm … “a bit obvious” …
A “cellular radio” module would include a SIM (or an “eSIM” ?), which however “undocumented” the hardware module may be could be traced to whoever is paying the bills for those SIM IDs.
.
Attached is a generic “Radio Access Network (RAN)” diagram for 5G mobile devices (phones, cars, tablets, laptop computers, …).
Why can’t a diagram with a similar level of “detail” be provided showing the alleged “communications channels” without including any (or at least minimal) “information useful to the enemy” ?
Consider the number of Chinese balloons that have floated overhead.
Do you know LoRa?
Receiver can get any command one way.
Strong enough signal can get to many devices simultaneously.
You don’t need any wifi, BT, cell coverage.
Open source publications? Concur.
Why? We have too many in this country that would activate a kill switch just for S&Gs.
Fake bomb scares. Whatever it is called when someone calls the police to make a raid on an innocent family.
A former CIA Director once noted that about 80 percent of useful intel came from open sources. A lot of stuff that passed through FBIS back in the day, was unremarkable until connected with other unremarkable stuff and became the basis for understanding in high places. That “understanding” and basis for same was often guarded to the max.
I agree with _Jim. Every electronic product needs an interface to program an FPGA during manufacturing.
“Undocumented cellular radios were also found in Chinese-manufactured batteries”. Do you require manufacturer, model, and number? A cellular radio doesn’t sound like an RS-232 port to me, nor does it sound like BiST. It sounds like a cellular radio. I don’t see why a cellular radio would be required for factory testing.
What kind of factory did you work at that required cellular radios to be installed and delivered in equipment as test hardware? Seems like it would run up the per unit price.
Late response but…
When i read “Undocumented cellular radios were also found in Chinese-manufactured batteries” I think “the original reporter probably doesn’t get it”. Cellular is the wrong tech for the operation implied. Wireless yes. Cellular no.
Also… IN the batteries? Like inside? erm…
Here is an example of finding out too late that there is some nefarious software in a common device
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEfVtSER13v/?igsh=bDlvbG95YjRoN3M2
HP – a US company
I made a list from the article of the people you can check with about the presence of these devices–in ‘solar panels’ from the title, then with no mention of solar panels ever again.
‘officials’
‘sources familiar with the matter’
‘US experts’
‘Mike Rogers’ (generic statement about a belief)
‘experts’
‘one of the sources’
‘a spokesperson’
another ‘a spokesperson’
Marco Rubio, again a generic statement not related to the article subject
A pretty classic case of ‘who told you that and why did you believe it’.
Yup.
Exploding pagers, anyone?
It sounds as if the tariff negotiations just got complicated. In my fantasy:
Trump: Given the Chinese attempt to sabotage U.S. infrastructure:
A) tariffs on Chinese products are now 999%, and
B) the United States repudiates all U.S. debt instruments held by the government of Chinga.
B would tell the rest of the world that Trump and the US are unreliable financial partners, as if abrogating 15 trade agreements didn’t already send that message.
Did the U.S. have favorable (net) tariff provisions in any of the 15 trade agreements that have been abrogated?
Were any of those trade agreements executed by any government officials where their family members received a financial payment under the terms of the agreement?
Some had been negotiated by Trump in his first term. One was the USMCA. You tell me.
This is a very frightening story…hopefully the West is waking up to China just in time.
Who needs sophisticated technology in inverters to take out a grid when a a weather front can do it more effectively.
:”WEATHER DEPENDENT GENERATION” – weather dependence is inherent to its design. Put enough of them on the grid and there are going to be instability issues that changes in clouds and wind are bound to initiate.
China now has HVDC interconnectors. Europe is gradually interconnecting through HVDC. That is one way to reduce instability. Tesla’s era may be behind us. More power to Edison.
In 2012 I started writing a novel, ‘Authentic’, about exactly this threat of a catastrophe caused by bad-actor involvement in chip design in power supplies (at the time I worked for a mid-sized semiconductor company and had been involved in energy management). Later it turned into a screenplay (‘Diversion’) on a different topic (shadow government interfering with US manufacture of security chips used in drones and fighters). Anyway, here’s the prolog I wrote 13 years ago:
Authentic
Power corrupts.
The ceiling lights flickered on, then went out. It woke the man up. He sat up in bed, blinking in the dark, and felt the cold of the unheated room seep though his extra sweater.
“One more time, Mr Lineman, try one more time” muttered the man, to whichever far-off power company employee was struggling to bring Chicago back on line early on a chilly January morning.
The lights came on and stayed on, bright. The man grunted and squeezed his eyes shut. A chorus of chirping, beeping approval rose from the starving electronics around the house as the power returned. He squinted at his phone. Out nearly forty hours this time. Half the city in chaos, the people cold-turkey – frozen turkey, more like, thought the man – as their precious technology ground to a halt.
The man got out of bed and walked over to the gently buzzing light switch. He faded the ceiling lights down to nothing, slowly. Pinkish-gray light seeped through the curtains: too early to get up.
The man settled back into bed, shivering involuntarily. So many flat batteries. So many AC adaptors clinging to the outlets in each room. So many gadgets breakfasting greedily at the electric trough. He glanced one more time at the now softly-pulsing charging icon on the brand new phone, and turned the display off, keeping his hand on the switch for a moment. Should he feel guilty, having so much tech stuff? Why should he? What possible effect could one more small phone have on the electricity supply?
We just had a somewhat extensive blackout in Boston. I haven’t heard the cause yet. I only hope it’s not something our recent policies have left us vulnerable to.
““while this functionality may not have malicious intent,”…
and the moon MIGHT be made of green cheese .
True, Bob. I’m always amazed at the naivety of ëxperts”.
Just this last weekend I was telling my brother about an EV sitting in driveway bursting into flames hot enough to burn the nearby home to the ground (UK). Mentioned China has been selling cheap EVs in Europe, and I quipped, “They better hope the Chinese aren’t using the same electronics the Israels put in pagers sold to Hamas.”
i guess this is a form of parody inversion. Regardless of how absurd or stupid something is, there are people who either believe it or are doing it.
You mean like, perhaps, this possibility has never been considered:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/28/congrats-to-spain-nation-goes-100-renewable-as-of-april-16th-2025-butthen-mass-blackouts-hit-spain-portugal/#comment-4066634
Just sayin’ . . . 😳
Maybe just a trial run.
I don’t trust China and would never dismiss out of hand that they are doing stuff like this. Beware.
Trust them they’re from Beijing and they’re here to help with changing the climate. Think of it as trialling new climate changing technology-
Auto engine stop-start tech in new cars could be banned in the US
I always thought that the so called “smart grid”/”smart meters”, if hacked in great numbers, could easily destabilize energy distribution by doing disconnects/reconnects in sync.
Seeing the effect of a small imbalance in the electricity grid on Spain and Portugal, it wouldn’t take much to upset the UK grid if we continue with our headlong rush to wind and solar.
All it would need is some strategically placed devices to cause a countrywide blackout that would take days or weeks to restart the grid. Then unless the devices are found it could be a case of “rinse and repeat”.
One has to wonder (pure speculation) if those embedded circuits could be set to permanently disable.
This is a Norm MacDonald SNL Weekend Update joke: “Officials are reportedly reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices found in solar panels that are capable of damaging the energy infrastructure, destabilizing the power grid and triggering widespread blackouts. Those devices? Solar Panels.”
I think we built similar problems into our own equipment. I think someone could hack On Star and shut down every vehicle on that system.
I’ve wondered what weaknesses may have been revealed by microscopic examination of the Soviet Mig 25 that Victor Belenko loaned us (technically, Japan) in the mid-70s.
That MIG was a piece of junk. The electronics were at least a decade out of date. The plane was poorly maintained and crudely built, IIRC.
The Soviets had a history of relying on brute force v. clever design and production. A bit unsettling when boarding the Tupelov 154.
Re. the “piece of junk” – confrmation is always good. Assumptions can be tricky.
Lt. Belenko was far more valuable than the Mig
China is not our friend. China is no ones friend, they see all Foreign Devils as enemies and always have.
Sinophobia detected. It is a form a racism, btw.
Is that sarcasm?
Han Chinese, “Ceslestials”, that make up the majority if not all powerful people in China, see non-Han Chinese and all the rest of the world as less than human.
I am strictly against libeling nationalities and their states. Anglo-saxons, Germans, Spanish, Turks, Japanese, etc. have had a long history of considering and treating many people around the world as less than human. If some Chinese belong to this mold, it should be discussed considering facts, rather instigating and justifying your own racism. What the West has done to China in colonial times is pure abomination. Chinese are no saints, but in context of everything else not that much different. Look in the mirror.
You can’t repeat this enough. China wants to be the Supreme Global Superpower. They want to dominate militarily, economically and culturally.
Suppose it was true, it could be, why not? They would not be the first ones after all. Anglo-Saxons and Germans have clearly had the same aspirations, and USA elites today consider such domination as their birth right. Looking back into ancient world, Greeks and Romans have set the precedent with the Universe accessible to them. Christianity and Islam both aspire to global domination.
So, is this wrong just because they are Chinese?
This does not surprise me. I worked at a major U.S. manufacturer. It was rumoured that the PRC penetrated our network with counterfeit network equipment that contained “extra” silicon hidden in the integrated circuit packages. The counterfeit equipment appeared to be from a well known manufacturer but had duplicate serial numbers which were only found when there was a problem with one unit.
its absolutely standard practice to overspec a chip or board etc and then sell it at different specs / price levels by disabling the various bits. much cheaper than building several chips / pcbs with actual different specs.
particularly on the wifi connections.
there is no evidence that this isnt what is happening here.
“while this functionality may not have malicious intent,…”
No adult could be that naive.