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FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

pv-magazine-usa.com

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Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#41

Post by voakbasda »

cyanydeez wrote: post #40
lazide wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have it on good authority that the Soviets also made crap.

yes, but we're talking about how the Chinese produce crap that's built cheaply, sold cheaply, ends up in American's hands and it's buggy and insecure; and instead of thinking, gee, perhaps capitalism isn't building the best products for my security they think "oh gee, the chinese have a whole apparatus of surveillance looking to get into my . Then someone exploits sed insecurity and the circle of paranoia is complete…

You realize that a lot of these devices have been found to phone home to servers in the motherland, right? Without informing the user they were doing so? Or would be expected for the class and function of device? You wanna explain how that was just “buggy and insecure”?

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#42

Post by giov4 »

voakbasda wrote: post #41
cyanydeez wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but we're talking about how the Chinese produce crap that's built cheaply, sold cheaply, ends up in American's hands and it's buggy and insecure; and instead of thinking, gee, perhaps capitalism isn't building the best products for my security they think "oh gee, the chinese have a whole apparatus of surveillance looking to get into my . Then someone exploits sed insecurity and the circle of paranoia is complete…

You realize that a lot of these devices have been found to phone home to servers in the motherland, right? Without informing the user they were doing so? Or would be expected for the class and function of device? You wanna explain how that was just “buggy and insecure”?

A device calling home and posting data is normality since many years already and does not directly represent a security risk for the normal user, based also on the fact that this communication is often covered by his vendor policy acceptance.

what's bad is if the vendor is sending data that should not be sent or collected and if the vendor leaves the device insecure, especially on purpose. In relation to the inverter case yes that can represent potential risk since it would be part of the grid too, hence near to crit infra and maybe even able to influence it.

Additionally network can be controlled, limited and inspected, that's a bit different for a hidden backdoor or hardcoded creds in a flashed firmware on a chip.

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#43

Post by lazide »

cyanydeez wrote: post #40
lazide wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have it on good authority that the Soviets also made crap.

yes, but we're talking about how the Chinese produce crap that's built cheaply, sold cheaply, ends up in American's hands and it's buggy and insecure; and instead of thinking, gee, perhaps capitalism isn't building the best products for my security they think "oh gee, the chinese have a whole apparatus of surveillance looking to get into my . Then someone exploits sed insecurity and the circle of paranoia is complete…

I’m pointing out this has literally nothing to do with Capitalism.

If anything, this move is ANTI capitalist.

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#44

Post by inigyou »

lazide wrote: post #43
cyanydeez wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but we're talking about how the Chinese produce crap that's built cheaply, sold cheaply, ends up in American's hands and it's buggy and insecure; and instead of thinking, gee, perhaps capitalism isn't building the best products for my security they think "oh gee, the chinese have a whole apparatus of surveillance looking to get into my . Then someone exploits sed insecurity and the circle of paranoia is complete…

I’m pointing out this has literally nothing to do with Capitalism. If anything, this move is ANTI capitalist.

It's billionaires enforcing their monopolies.

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#45

Post by inigyou »

lazide wrote: post #20
egorfine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this requires internet connection.

How do you expect your typical mobile app to work through NAT, etc. without an internet connection? For your typical ‘dumb’ home user, anyway?

Using IPv6! But also we should ban IPv6 because of security! Letting devices connect to each other without bouncing through a central server is a security risk! (This is a popular opinion on HN)

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#46

Post by inigyou »

egorfine wrote: post #33
quietsegfault wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My solar production data is fed to my ISO so I can sell clean energy vouchers. My solar installer just called me the other day asking if I had a tree shading a panel, because production on that panel was low. There are plenty of reasons to have internet connected solar equipment.

Outbound connection to your provider with stats? Good. Random connection to any IP especially on China territory? Absolutely not.

But that IP is your provider, and the data being sent is stats.

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#47

Post by inigyou »

nicman23 wrote: post #23
kotaKat wrote: post #16

Not like the threat was in the room with us this entire time. Looking at all those APC UPSes that had the TLSstorm exploit and possibility of actual burnout and fire... But sure. It's the evil evil Chinese shit that's the problem. I feel so much safer knowing we banned things like Autel's drones, random power inverters, and Unitree robots, but not Autel's key programmers kids are using to steal cars! Funny thing sear…

i mean at least you can sue apc

You can also due whoever imports faulty Chinese equipment. With cross-border trade, the importer becomes liable for everything the manufacturer would be liable for if it was domestically manufactured.

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#48

Post by inigyou »

dangoljames wrote: post #28

What the hell does the FCC have to do witb power inverters? Dont they have some drone pilots to harass or something?

all electronics need FCC certification to say they don't emit radio interference. The FCC has just decertified several classes of electronics - taking away their certificate of "this doesn't emit radio interference" - for political ideological reasons that have nothing to do with radio interference.

It's Trump's handlers finding any legally available lever to pull, like how they started tariffs "to fight slavery" the other week because they found a law letting them impose tariffs against slave countries.

Re: FCC bans foreign-produced solar inverters, grid lockout begins today

#50

Post by leonidasrup »

no-name-here wrote: post #24
leonidasrup wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not call offshore wind cheap, as can bee seen in Germany in the 2025 Germany's No-Subsidy Offshore Wind Auction. https://www.offshorewind.biz/2025/08/06/germanys-2-5-gw-offs... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/analyzing-failure-germanys-no... Private investors are currently not willing to invest into offshore wind at market pricing. Solar is much cheaper.

1. Solar may be cheaper on average, but the Trump admin wouldn’t have to be banning companies from pursuing wind and rescinding wind leases that companies had chosen to purchase (as GP commenter linked) if companies didn’t think wind was a way to generate electricity that could also generate a profit. 2. Combining wind with other forms of renewables can also be an excellent option as wind can also generate electricit…

The Trump administration is opposed to wind power, we all know that. On the other hand the claim from the article https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-national-secu... is :

"Burgum says he’s worried about autonomous drones going through a wind tower field undetected because of radar interference. And, he said, the vibration of wind towers could affect undersea sonar."

Maybe it's false, maybe it's true, but we can't say it for sure, because exact capabilities and limitation of military radars are classified. Personally, I think it's a half-truth, military radars have problems with detection of small slow flying drones through wind farm with a lot of moving turbine blades, but it's very improbable that someone would attack US using drones flying through offshore wind farm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar#Clutter

2. Combining wind with other forms of renewables doesn't make it cheaper, but more expensive, you to build more machines, infrastructure. But in all cases, for weather dependent renewables like wind power, you have build some backup power generation for the times when wind is too weak, or too strong and wind power plant doesn't generate enough electricity.

It's interesting to see that offshore wind without subsidies is not competitive even in Germany, where natural gas is much more expensive then in US. European wholesale gas is roughly 4 to 5 times more expensive than in the U.S. market.

Similar situation in UK, Belgium, Japan, India

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66749344

https://www.renews.biz/offshore-wind/belgium-halts-princess-...

https://www.renews.biz/offshore-wind/gwec-urges-japan-to-ref...

https://www.renews.biz/offshore-wind/india-scraps-4-5gw-offs...

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