Europe’s Wind and Solar Have a Control-Panel Problem

Build the turbines. Install the panels. Give the maintenance screen an internet address. What could possibly go horribly, horribly wrong?

On October 6, Modat reported 8,547 internet-exposed systems linked to wind and solar installations across 35 European countries. Some interfaces manage a single turbine; others reach several turbines or an entire farm. The research was presented at The ONE Conference in The Hague.^[1]

A little precision before the panic machine starts spinning: most of the systems found were administration pages with login screens, Reuters reports. Researcher Soufian El Yadmani told the agency that full control was believed possible at around 181 sites. The big headline number measures exposure. It does not describe 8,547 successful break-ins.^[2]

Still, putting operational machinery within reach of an internet scan deserves considerably more attention than another glossy resilience brochure. A distributed energy system needs access controls as carefully considered as its engineering.

Modat says affected parties were notified through national CERTs. The researchers urged operators to remove administration interfaces from the public internet.^[1][2]

The green transition deserves a better security plan than hoping the wrong droog never finds the maintenance console.