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  • Hacker News
  • We've finally imported European style technology regulation
    by klooney
  • Eh, European tech regulation at very least has some sane steelman published and documented, even if we personally disagree with that reasoning.
    by Kim_Bruning
  • Europe does not have this style of regulations.
    by inigyou
  • What the hell does the FCC have to do witb power inverters? Dont they have some drone pilots to harass or something?
    by dangoljames
  • Aren't responsible for certifying?
    by kingwill101
  • 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.

    by inigyou
  • > prove their code cannot be manipulated remotely

    That's not technically possible, surely.

    by chrisjj
  • the scale of this order is breath taking, it is a massive windfall for projects outside of the US, as depending on how contracts were written, american companys are still be on the hook to take delivery and will now have to resell at a discount, which may all get lost in various financial restructuring and bankruptcys, while setting US solar back years, add in that the latest bump in oil futures means that demand for solar just went up, and not only the inverters, but the specialists who design the systems that use them, will be able to find something to do. The other thing is that ANY project useing a chip from China, will now be hitting pause. wow.
    by metalman
  • 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 searching "autel teenager stolen cars" and seeing hundreds of police releases of kids getting busted with guns and Autel tablets and a shitton of universally programmable keys. I feel so much safer knowing the Chinese drones can't spy on me while the kids steal my car. :)

    by kotaKat
  • i mean at least you can sue apc
    by nicman23
  • Absolute cowardice & wanton destruction of the world, this. This is just a political ploy, on no merit, and it's the same anything-and-everything as the administration pulled to prevent cheap, effective, capable wind power from happening. https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-national-secu... https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/wind/states-lawsuit-tru...

    It's nonsense and there's no pretense, no data otherwise. The party of drill baby drill isn't about better power, about using mineral rights: it's about crony-istic state control of industry, about vested interests, about bribery corruption and grift for insiders. (That and/or they are actively trying to destroy the country wholesale, are barbarians within seeking only to destroy.)

    I do think there is one step I'd like to see the world take in reply, that would make this be much funnier: "we don't ship the software, you have to run that yourself". Start an open source Zephyr IoT project for inverters, and just don't distribute the software. Make people just buy the hardware. I for one welcome the world where the two come separate. I think it would be a remarkable upgrade for humanity to decouple the two, and it would be bitterly hilarious if these batshit loons somehow end up accidentally creating the better world. I can't think of what other reply would have anywhere near the force of effect of making absolute mock, and it would radically improve things. This should happen.

    by jauntywundrkind
  • 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.

    by leonidasrup
  • Can someone more familiar with the technology explain how necessary it is for the inverter to be internet connected? This seems like the kind of cloud dependency that people on HN would usually be opposed to.
    by tdeck
  • Its sold to consumers as stats & diagnostics. Companies do this to sell your data and in hopes of roping you into recurring revenue schemes.
    by rasz
  • Smart inverters allow energy companies to reduce the solar power sent to the grid to improve grid stability, avoid overload conditions etc.
    by arlattimore
  • A small solar inverter doesn't need to be internet connected, but solar inverter app monitoring lets you track energy production, view real-time power flows, and check device status using a smartphone or tablet. So automaticaly you could get all the IoT security issues.

    https://solar-assistant.io/

    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/solarman-smart/id1469487897

    If an attacker could control a significant portion of solar inverters in a solar dominated grid, he could cause an blackout, under right conditions.

    More in presentations at CCC:

    "How to cause blackout"

    https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7323-wie_man_einen_blackout_veru...

    "BlinkenCity: Radio-Controlling Street Lamps and Power Plants"

    https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-blinkencity-radio-controlling-st...

    Large solar invertors at large solar plants muss be under remote controling of grid operators, to allow solar curtailment when the solar production exceeds electric demand or grid transmission could be overloaded. This is not specific to solar power plants, other kinds of power plants are also under control of grid operators.

    With increased deployment of residential solar its possible that this controlling will be extented also to residential solar.

    by leonidasrup
  • If they could prohibit internet communications and allow LAN communications, that would be great.

    Also, it should apply regardless of where they are manufactured. It's far more likely for an attack to happen through a compromised centralized server, or a worm compromising embedded servers en masse, than it is for an authority to directly petition an attack.

    Also, my inverter wasn't manufactured in China, but the Wi-Fi module was made by Shanghai MXCHIP Information Technology Co., so it's no less vulnerable.

    by dlcarrier
  • while I totally understand the risk of foreign hardware and firmware, this is exclusively a sabotage of green power development confirmed by the methodology and speed of implementation of it.

    blocking related projects by forcing a supply chain re-co figuration and disconnect from grid for non compliancy it's a clear targeted sabotage and does not mitigate the risk! -> us produced inverter with asian chips and firmware anyway!

    this is only devolution and it can happen only there, especially WITHOUT a clear transition or migration plan that considers hardware, industry and infrastructure!

    if more power is needed, and power costs are increasing, why force disconnect and sabotage development for green power? dont forget to do 1+1 with the reality of your state dear citizens!

    by giov4
  • Counterpoint - building out even more critical infrastructure which might as well be coming pre-rootkitted by a known foreign adversary seems quite dumb?
    by lazide