From JoNova

Nobody wants to say China

A couple of weeks ago at the Australian Clean Energy summit,  there was a dawning realization that in our rush to diversify the energy grid we are  accidentally “diversifying” our cyber security risks too.

Where, once upon a time, we could double and triple check the barriers around big old coal plants, now we have opened electronic doors to our grid on homes all over Australia. Energy geniuses told us solar panels would be decentralized, but instead, now that Australia has  25,000 megawatts of household solar, we have to add wireless gadgets to control them remotely. And some of these gadgets are coming in from fly-by-night small time operators. If, hypothetically, a foreign power wanted to be mean, or just hold an extra negotiating or blackmail card up its sleeve, we’re making it very easy. If Mr Chin wants something approved, he could say “Nice grid you have there…”

Small scale solar is so big, As Williamson points out, that it supplied 13% of the electricity to the NEM so far this year. And in Western Australia, it has generated 20%. (Boy is the West in trouble?)

On top of this, to deal with the hellfire price spikes at 6pm, the government is subsidizing industrial batteries in homes, wired to the grid, often working in shared “virtual power plants”. Meaning that homes will have large boxes of chemical energy, controlled remotely, and nearly every gadget is made in China.

No one likes to say it, but China is the cybersecurity elephant in the renewable energy room

By Rachel Williamson, Reneweconomy

A combination of state- and regulator-mandated access points with woefully insecure small devices are building an open door for cyber attackers, says Darren Gladman, regulator manager for major equipment supplier SMA Australia.

“My god, small scale. We’ve just introduced an emergency backstop mechanism to turn everything off. If you wanted to make a hacker’s life easy, how could you have made it any easier?” he said during the panel session at ACES.

“The battery rebate, it’s great. However, it’s led to a lot of battery suppliers, a flood of batteries coming in. Some of these companies, when you look at their structure, they might be two or three people in Australia. They’re not thinking about cybersecurity. They’re trying to survive in a really competitive, cutthroat industry. 

“And then you’ve got on top of the backstop mechanism. You’ve got virtual power plants. You’ve got this space that lends itself to manipulation so easily, an industry that’s so competitive and so under-resourced that this is seen as a complete luxury, until you’re told that it’s not, and no one’s been told that it’s not.”

The federal battery rebate requires that all home batteries bought with the subsidy be VPP-enabled, and in Western Australia they must be connected to one. 

Apparently the rush of insecure gadgets into Australian homes is so bad, that it was referred to as “Digital Asbestos” by David Owen, a Deloitte partner.  He wonders who will pay for the replacement of all the inverters if we realize, too late, that they pose an unacceptable risk?

Rachel Williamson reports that everyone in the Australian renewable industry is fine with talking about buying things from China until someone says the word “cybersecurity”. Then suddenly people won’t-mention-the-CCP-word, except to hint anonymously. It’s a strange state of affairs.

In the end, the nation that lied about a pandemic, then launched hostile trade wars when we asked for answers, now potentially has access to many of our homes. It may also have control over explosive batteries and potentially could bring down our grid…

Maybe we should have thought of that ten years ago?

Related:  What if a foreign hacker could turn home batteries into “pager-bombs” but 7,500 times bigger?

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