Chinese ‘kill switches’ found hidden in US solar farms
Chinese “kill switches” that could allow Beijing to cripple power grids and trigger blackouts across the West have been found in equipment at US solar farms.
The rogue devices, including cellular radios, were discovered in Chinese-made power inverters that are used to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids across the world, including the UK.
The hidden communications equipment could be deployed remotely to switch off inverters with potentially catastrophic results.
The discovery, reported by Reuters, will heighten concerns that China has installed covert malware in critical energy infrastructure throughout the US and Europe. The kill switches could be deployed at any time in the event of a confrontation between China and the West.
Mike Rogers, a former director of the US National Security Agency, said China had a vested interest in putting US infrastructure at risk
JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP
Over the past nine months, the suspect devices were found in inverters and batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers by US experts who strip down equipment to check for security issues before they are connected to power grids.
Inverters are built to include remote access via the cellular network and utility companies commonly install firewalls to prevent hacking and communication back to China. However, the rogue components were not listed in product documents when they were shipped to the US.
Using the devices to get around firewalls, China could potentially switch off inverters remotely or change their settings to bring down the grid.
“That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid,” one source told Reuters.
One alarming security incident occurred in November, when solar power inverters in the US were disabled from China. The number of inverters that were affected and the damage done remains unclear, but the incident underscores the risk posed by Chinese technology being used in the West’s electricity networks.
Chinese infiltration of strategic US infrastructure has long been a source of concern as tensions rise between the rival superpowers. Beijing’s dominance over the manufacturing of essential parts for batteries and high-tech devices is seen as a critical security weakness. Chinese companies are required by law to co-operate with the country’s intelligence agencies, giving Beijing potential control over Chinese-made inverters connected to foreign power grids.
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“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 US National Security Agency, said. “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 world’s largest supplier of inverters is Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that was barred from US telecoms networks on national security grounds in 2019 during President Trump’s first term. The company was accused of building backdoor access into its 5G telecoms equipment that could allow surveillance by the Chinese government. Huawei denied the claim.
The UK and Europe could also be exposed by Chinese-made parts in solar farms and wind turbines. A British government review of Chinese technology in the country’s renewable energy infrastructure is underway and will examine the risk posed by inverters made in China.
“Ten years ago, if you switched off the Chinese inverters, it would not have caused a dramatic thing to happen to European grids, but now the critical mass is much larger,” Philipp Schröder, the chief executive of German solar developer 1Komma5, said. The company avoids using Huawei inverters because of the potential security risk.
“China’s dominance is becoming a bigger issue because of the growing renewables capacity on Western grids and the increased likelihood of a prolonged and serious confrontation between China and the West,” Schröder added.
The wing-tip of a US U-2 surveillance plane is visible in this picture of the Chinese surveillance balloon that drifted over North America in 2023, conducting electronic surveillance.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE/MEGA
US officials have called for a sweeping reassessment of potential security weaknesses in light of the latest alarm.
“The threat we face from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] is real and growing. Whether it’s telecom hacks or remotely accessing solar and battery inverters, the CCP stops at nothing to target our sensitive infrastructure and components,” August Pfluger, a Republican congressman and member of the US Senate homeland security committee, told Reuters.
Recent security scares, including the Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the US in 2023, have reignited calls in Washington to confront the threat of espionage from Beijing. However, calls for bans on Chinese-made electronics, technology and social media platforms have only underscored the difficulty of disentangling the world’s two largest economies and loosening China’s grip on US supply chains.
As the competition for tech supremacy with China accelerates, US politicians introduced a bill this week that would require American manufacturers to build tracking technology into artificial intelligence (AI) microchips. The Chip Security Act will provide legal recourse to trace chips after they are shipped abroad and follows reports that US-made AI chips are being smuggled into China in breach of export controls.
Responding to the Reuters report, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington said: “We oppose the generalisation of the concept of national security, distorting and smearing China’s infrastructure achievements.”