BRUSSELS — First it was telecom snooping. Now Europe is growing worried that Huawei could turn the lights off.
The Chinese tech giant is at the heart of a brewing storm over the security of Europe’s energy grids. Lawmakers are writing to the European Commission to urge it to “restrict high-risk vendors” from solar energy systems, in a letter seen by POLITICO. Such restrictions would target Huawei first and foremost, as the dominant Chinese supplier of critical parts of these systems.
The fears center around solar panel inverters, a piece of technology that turns solar panels’ electricity into current that flows into the grid. China is a dominant supplier of these inverters, and Huawei is its biggest player. Because the inverters are hooked up to the internet, security experts warn the inverters could be tampered with or shut down through remote access, potentially causing dangerous surges or drops in electricity in Europe’s networks.
The warnings come as European governments have woken up to the risks of being reliant on other regions for critical services — from Russian gas to Chinese critical raw materials and American digital services. The bloc is in a stand-off with Beijing over trade in raw materials and has faced months of pressure from Washington on how Brussels regulates U.S. tech giants.
