Wind power: Government relies on more IT security and less dependence on China

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK) has presented a package of measures for the wind industry aimed at improving the IT security of wind turbines and also the competitive conditions in Germany and Europe. The German Wind Energy Association (BWE) welcomes the package, which must now be implemented quickly.

"The requirement that cybersecurity requirements should apply to all companies that have a de facto control and access option to a power generation plant must now be defined by law quickly," emphasized BWE President Bärbel Heidebroek. Her association had called for the law to stipulate that energy plants could only be accessed from EU member states. Data and system-relevant information should only be stored and processed within the EU.

The package of measures states that the BMWK and the industry will work closely together to develop feasible and effective security requirements. The ministry wants to ensure that critical IT components can also be tested in the energy sector as quickly as possible. This should already be implemented in current legislative projects.

90 percent of permanent magnets from China

Competition on the wind energy market should be improved, for example by consistently using trade protection instruments such as anti-dumping and anti-subsidy. In this context, the BMWK makes unspecific reference to investigations into the "Foreign Subsidies Regulation", which have been possible for over a year. EU Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager announced such an investigation into Chinese suppliers of wind turbines for Bulgaria, France, Greece, Romania and Spain in April of this year.

Specifically, China appears in the package of measures under the heading of dependencies in the supply of permanent magnets. Currently, 90 percent of these generator components come from there. These dependencies are to be reduced through the Critical Raw Material Acts and the Net Zero Industry Act. Together with the industry concerned, the BMWK intends to draw up a roadmap at the turn of the year on how these can be implemented.

In order to financially secure the production ramp-up of the wind power industry, the necessary 16 billion euros are to be made available by expanding the KfW program "Consortium Loan Sustainable Transformation". The German government wants to do this as quickly as possible.

In April 2022, a cyber attack on the wind turbine support company Deutsche Windtechnik showed just how vulnerable wind turbines can be. The attack cut the connections for monitoring wind turbines. At times, remote monitoring was therefore not possible. Around 2000 wind turbines are said to have been affected.

(anw)