Solar Sabotage? An Old Hat – but Still Burning Hot

Ever heard of solar sabotage? No? Then buckle up: a topic as old as the first IT security patches – and still highly relevant today. According to research by Monitor (WDR), the majority of Germany’s solar energy is powered through inverters from China. That carries certain risks.

An Old Hat – but Still Smoldering

“Old hat,” because we’ve seen this clash between critical infrastructure and backdoors countless times before. Inverters are digital operational devices: they control conversion processes, send status messages, communicate. In short: without them, nothing works.

The fact that vulnerabilities may have been smuggled in through them feels almost like the 404 error of the energy sector. And yet it remains relevant because:

  • Security gaps never really get old – they persist (and remain opportunistic).
  • The combination of Smart Grid + foreign firmware is both an attacker’s dream and an operator’s nightmare.
  • Our power grids are only as secure as their strongest – or weakest – components.

What Actually Happened?

Sources suggest that some inverters contain undocumented hardware – backdoors that officially don’t exist. Manufacturers such as Huawei, Sungrow, or Ginlong Solis are being named. More than 200 gigawatts of solar capacity in Europe are now dependent on such devices – enough to replace roughly 200 nuclear power plants.

Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania are already reacting: restricting the use of certain hardware to protect their smart grid systems. Pragmatism at its best.

Supply Chain in Focus – Not Just China

But in our view, the debate shouldn’t stop at the buzzword China. Critical components can be found across the entire supply chain:

  • Cars contain control units from Asia.
  • Wind farms rely on internationally produced controllers.
  • Even chips and modules from the USA or EU can harbor vulnerabilities.

In short: any country of origin can become a problem. The origin alone is no guarantee for security – neither positively nor negatively.

Our view: It’s not enough to say “China = bad, EU/USA = good.” What matters is the testing of the actual equipment.

Companies should engage in dialogue with their suppliers:

  • Does the code contain backdoors? Can this be verified independently?
  • Was the product manipulated during transport?
  • Are firmware updates transparently documented?
  • How are newly discovered vulnerabilities handled?

Only by asking these questions can risks along the supply chain be sustainably minimized.

A positive example can be seen in the smart meter rollout in the German energy sector: transport and security of devices are managed remarkably reliably – an approach other areas could learn from.

No Panic, But Vigilance

No one is secretly tampering with our solar rooftops at the moment – provided devices are properly configured. But:

  • An unrecognized communication channel could, in a worst-case scenario, lead to load peaks or shutdowns – as recently became known, undocumented communication modules were discovered in Chinese solar inverters. Experts warned that these backdoors could be used to bypass firewalls and destabilize entire networks (Reuters, May 2025).
  • IT and OT security are merging – especially in critical infrastructures.
  • Prevention means: monitoring supply chains, testing devices, knowing and managing risks.

And this is where CyberShield comes in:

  • OT Security Assessments – we test devices and systems for vulnerabilities.
  • Network Segmentation – barriers to contain potential attacks.
  • Incident Response – secure and reliable handling of anomalies.
  • Risk Analysis & Supply Chain Security – ensuring no backdoor goes unnoticed.

We don’t hoard panic, but we do deliver risk analyses, emergency plans, and monitoring – for a secure industry.

Our Conclusion

This “old hat” is like solar branding: worn out, but still hot. Media may like to turn standards into security ghost stories. We know: security in energy supply, smart grids, and supply chains means designing prevention intelligently – not stirring panic.

If you want to learn how to truly secure your entire supply chain – from solar inverters to wind farm controllers to smart meters – without losing the fun of technology, we’re here to help with supply chain security and enterprise-level cybersecurity hygiene.

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