Hacking Solar Power Grids: Plausible?

Well, now that anyone with this proclivity has a complete set of instructions...

Yeah, TV is usually good at that too, putting ideas out there that terrorists haven't thought about yet. It sells anti acid pills.

Backup generator....

Hah! David Letterman as a kid!

I do not get it. As a hardware engineer, I know we try to limit as much as possible the actions that can be made from the software point of view.

Worst case scenario for hacked software? Turn off the internet and reboot.

It's nothing I'm going to worry about. Power outages are a expectable part of the reality we live in and anyone who has something that is critically power dependant should have the necessary emergency backup systems of their own in place to deal with it.

I do.

In a word, yes.

Look back to the movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and imagine what havoc could be caused by a total power grid failure.

Or, Northeast blackout of 2003 - Wikipedia.

Gasoline, water, and most liquids are pumped by electric pumps.

Stop lights? A massive traffic jam would occur. Airports? Electric cars, too.

Let's say some smart crooks simply take out a county or two in New York state, with the assurance that they can take out an entire state if their demands aren't met. Then, there's always the threat of our enemies doing it to throw the country into chaos and financial disruption.

We already know that Russia (and others) can hack our Internet with impunity, and have. It would take a Russia, or other highly organized and funded player to do it.

I'll adopt the Alfred E. Newman approach and worry about the things over which I have, at least, some control.

I think it's highly unlikely since it relies on a confluence of highly improbable events, to whit; all grid connected PV inverters are identical, there is a central injection point for introducing the rogue code, they all use the same communications networks and utilize the same protocols, etc., etc.

There are just too many easier alternative brute force methods to bring the bring the grid down. And then there's Mother Nature who can provide tornadoes, hurricanes (approximately 12 days of cloud cover after Sandy), forest fires, and the occasional volcanic eruption to block any appreciable solar insolation.