You would need a lot of people actively involved to pull something like that off and the number of conspirators involved is inversely proportional to how long the conspiracy can be kept secret. So if it happened, the truth will come out in a fairly short time. Until then, I don’t see any point in entertaining these ideas or getting overwrought by them.

I’m sure Salman is elated.

The tax bill and the tariffs are separate. In sum there would be a $40M surplus each year for a decade.

Inverters and solar battery storage generally have some combination of wired and wireless communication. You need to communicate with the grid for real-time pricing and forecasts so the system knows when to charge and discharge. Also you want the system status of all the panels and batteries. If somebody slices through the wrong fiber line near your site, it’s important to still be able to get that information.

If you get a home PV system, they’ll often have the option of a cellular modem. The controller on my home system has Wi-Fi and Ethernet with the option of a cellular modem. It wouldn’t surprise me if the board comes populated with some of the components necessary for cellular functionality even if you don’t opt for it.

I’m just saying they need to divulge more details before one can conclude this is nefarious.

Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said.

The two people declined to name the Chinese manufacturers of the inverters and batteries with extra communication devices, nor say how many they had found in total.

They’re very light on details. Sometimes it’s cheaper to make one PCB in huge numbers and only enable the cellular modem on the higher priced models or when a subscription fee is paid. Their mere existence without any additional information shouldn’t be particularly alarming.

Fronius is Austrian and there are a few others but none producing microinverters that I’m aware of. If you are doing an install with no shading issues during the day, regular inverters are preferable though since the costs are cheaper and there’s no DC-AC-DC loss if you include a battery backup.