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151
Denmark finds ‘suspicious’ components in key infrastructure imports, raising concerns about espionage and energy security (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 week ago by Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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Danish firms have found “suspicious” components added to east Asian circuit boards that were supposed to be built into the country’s green energy infrastructure, according to an industry body.

It has raised concerns about the potential for remote disruption of the power supply or digital espionage, coming a week after the US claimed to have identified “kill switches” in a consignment of solar panels and batteries from China.

[...]

Green Power Denmark, an umbrella group for 1,500 Danish renewable technology companies, said the components from “the East” had been found during routine checks on a “development project” that had at no point been connected to the grid.

“It’s a clear warning: threats to energy security can hide in plain sight,” the organisation said. “The real danger isn’t always sabotage. It can also be unlisted components. Hidden functions. That’s why Danish energy companies dismantle and inspect before anything goes live.”

Jorgen Christensen, Green Power Denmark’s technical director, said there was no proof of foul play and it was possible that the mysterious electronics had been included to add some kind of innocent function to the circuit boards.

“It’s possible the supplier had no malicious intent,” he told Reuters. “We can’t say at this point. But that doesn’t change the fact that these components shouldn’t be there.”

Walburga Hemetsberger, head of the lobby group SolarPower Europe, said the discovery was highly concerning and called for an investigation.

[...]

In recent years experts have issued increasingly strident warnings about the security risk posed by China’s stranglehold over the supply of many categories of renewable energy components in Europe, such as batteries, turbines and the inverters used to smooth the voltage of power as it is fed into the grid.

The large-scale blackout that occurred a fortnight ago across much of Spain and Portugal, both of which depend heavily on Chinese-made solar energy infrastructure, has further concentrated minds on the issue.

[...]

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[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Nothing about this in Danish news yet

Edit: it seems that it had been, on a few media (tv2 and ingeniøren) but also popped up on state media just now

[–] bstix 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)
[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I must have missed this thanks

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Without trying to be conspiratorial, I don't like the amount of articles about funny stuff found in imported Chinese solar power components just after the Iberian peninsula lost power because of presumably disturbances coming from solar power plants.

[–] centof@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Idk, feels like US propaganda to me. All the articles about it are suspiciously light on details and it just so happens to coincide well with US Oil based energy policy and our(US) susceptibility to China fearmongering.

Edited to add: I know this is the Europe comm but I feel like US media narratives definitely trickles over to Europe.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There's no reason to think it's propaganda at this stage. It's most likely due to risk assessments being done after the Iberian outage.

[–] Anonymaus@feddit.org -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I dont believe chinese are the only ones doing this, but only they are getting news coverage over it, so it does seem a bit like they want to divert attention from the wider problem ( btw why did news media stop reporting about f35 kill swich )

[–] Microw@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

Circuit boards are produced in China, Taiwan and to a much lesser extend there are some productions in countries like Japan, Malaysia, US, India etc. But nearly all are manufactured in China.

[–] centof@lemm.ee -2 points 1 week ago

That could be but I feel like good propaganda does use other stories and narratives to boost its persuasive power. IF it was due to risk assessments then they should put that in the article. I feel like if they had solid proof, they would be willing to actually share that proof with the public rather than just hearsay that these stories have been.

If there was evidence of it being China, I would think they would be a lot less subtle about it then running articles about sus components without mentioning the connection Iberian incident. Something more direct like 'Iberian outage caused by kill switches in Chinese solar equipment' rather than running separate stories and leaving it to the reader to connect the stories on their own.

That's what makes it suspicious too me, too much fearmongering and too little substance and facts in the articles.

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

And that is one reading that actually makes sense, except it does not even have to be US propaganda. Enough interests exist in the EU itself to push such narratives. Wouldn't our dear Royal Dutch Shell like if we were hooked on oil for just a few more decades?

So that's why I was very careful with my wording here, it just feels something is brewing, but at this point all of these are equally likely and unlikely:

  • domestic fossil business wants to push Europe back to fossil and is creating false narratives
  • the US wants to push Europe back to fossil and away from China and is creating false narratives
  • Russia wants to push Europe back to fossil to maintain leverage and is creating false narratives
  • the Saudis want to push Europe back to fossil to keep their income and are creating false narratives
  • China is indeed backdooring European solar infra and essentially committed a terror attack against Spain
  • the cheapest possible Chinese hardware is just shit quality and nobody really knows what went wrong
  • Chinese backdoors exist but not intentionally, they are just shit at security, and Russia is taking advantage to pressure the EU about Ukraine
  • Chinese backdoors exist but not intentionally, they are just shit at security, and the US is taking advantage to pressure the EU about fossil fuels and China

Or one of these is true, but EU authorities are trying to redefine the narrative, so that either:

  • we can preserve relations with US business interests despite Trump
  • we are not as alarmed about Russian/Chinese/Saudi/US capabilities
  • we are not as alarmed about the sheer incompetence of the people in charge of buying EU solar power supplies
  • opponents of renewables don't get more fodder to create FUD to block further solar plants.