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fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

Apparently, China’s dominance of the supply chain means that it's also seen as the principal source of cybersecurity risk [reneweconomy.com.au]:

“We know that foreign, hostile actors see Australia’s energy system as a good target,” Home Affairs assistant secretary for cyber security Sophie Pearce told the small, afternoon-on-the-last-day audience.

“We know that cyber vector is the most likely means of disrupting our energy ecosystem, and I think that the energy transition raises the stakes even further. Where we’re reliant on foreign investment and foreign supply chains, lots of opportunity there, obviously.

“When there’s a dependency on jurisdictions that might require or can compel access to data or access to systems, that increases the risks.”

[...] Pearce Courtney handles cyber coordination for energy markets at AEMO, and while he says it’s maintaining visibility over the whole structure that keeps the organisation “up at night”, technology concentration risk is on the radar.

[...] “In terms of the technology and the devices and where we’re buying our supply chain. That’s probably the other challenge that doesn’t keep us up at night, that’s a significant, complex challenge.”

China controls 80 per cent of the global supply chain for all the manufacturing stages of solar panels, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report [iea.org] from 2022. A similar study [iea.org] from 2024 shows China has almost 85 per cent of global battery cell production capacity.

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