PV -Magazine Spoke with Garikoitz Sarriegi, senior project manager at Kiwa Pi Berlin Ibérica, about the Reuters report that it was published on Wednesday that devices were susceptible to espionage and sabotage in inverters and batteries from China.
The bomb broke on Wednesday: a report from Reuters said that inexplicable communication devices were found in some inverters and energy batteries made in China, and it is said that American energy officials “were the risk of Chinese to be reassessed again, according to two anonymous sources.” The report did not mention the manufacturers or the number of devices surveyed.
“It is clear that the issue of cyber security is a real and disturbing problem, but this information [in the Reuters report] Must be taken with a grain of salt, ”said Garikoitz Sarriegi, senior project manager at Kiwa Pi Berlin Ibérica, said PV -Magazine. Sarriegi states that, referring to the fact that those involved in the ‘investigation’ refused to provide further information, there is no report of whom the manufacturer is, or several manufacturers are involved, or how many units they have found with this problem.
Martin Schachinger, founder of the PVXCHANGE platform and who registers a monthly column PV -Magazine About the development of the European PV market, his opinion expressed his opinion about the report: “Unfortunately, the information is still very scarce and superficial. I would like to know whether more details are released at a certain moment or whether this will be a smokescreen that the existing conspiracy theories will feed further.”
Another point that Reuters makes in his article is the prohibition that the government of the United States is planning to impose on various of the largest manufacturers of the Chinese Battery Energy Storage (Bess) from 2027 because of their close ties with the Communist Party. Several American utilities fear that, after the ban of Huawei, other Chinese inverter manufacturers can get a similar ban. “At Kiwa Pi Berlin we talk to the greatest Bess manufacturers and we have verified that several of the smaller players involved use cells of these manufacturers who could be subjected to the ban, so these other manufacturers would also be excluded. Given the market share of Chinese manufacturers, it is difficult to believe that the prohibition is prospective that the prohibition, the prohibition is prospective that the prohibition is prospective that the prohibition, that the prohibition is prospective that the ban, Sarriegi added.
With regard to ‘back -browse access’, several large Spanish engineering firms have confirmed to the consultancy that ‘they do not install components that are not declared in the material account (BOM) and that, without the customer’s permission, they cannot do anything’ – such as updating parameters, changing firmware or running the inverter on or off.
“What is more, it seems that they have occasionally had problems because the customer did not give them access or did it slowly,” explained Sarriegi. These manufacturers of Spanish inverters can close their equipment remotely. “It is something that can be done for safety reasons, always with the customer’s permission. I am sure that if we ask another European manufacturer, the answer will be the same,” he added.
Sarriegi confirmed that, in theory, when the equipment is certified, it is ensured that “everything is in order, but firmware updates are usually performed via external access, and those do not necessarily have to be certified. That is where things can slide. But you have to be sure and truthful information.”
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