Podcast “Watt ’ne Law”: who controls our solar plants?

Who may control an inverter remotely, install updates or change the operation of a solar plant? That was the topic of an episode of the German podcast “Watt ’ne Law” by Michael Nöding and Dirk Voges, and we took part: our Sales Manager Tilo Zwesper and our CTO Matthias Reisenauer talked to the two hosts and to Werner Bachmann, lawyer and partner at gunnercooke DACH specialising in IT, data protection and security.

The episode was recorded on 8 October 2026, with Tilo and Matthias joining from our office in Pfullingen. It was prompted by research by DIE ZEIT into security vulnerabilities in networked solar plants.

© REFU Elektronik GmbH

What it is about

• Remote access and system architecture: which interventions are technically possible, and which does operation really need?
• International supply chains: how can dependencies be identified and critical functions controlled?
• Procurement and contracts: which evidence, access rights and support agreements belong on the table?
• NIS2, critical infrastructure and responsibility: how do technical and organisational requirements fit together?
• The emergency: what companies can learn from volunteer fire brigades about clear responsibilities.

Our perspective

Tilo contributed the practical view: how components are selected and combined. Matthias explained communication paths, technical dependencies and which access a plant should allow in the first place. One insight from the episode: the origin of individual components alone does not answer the security question. It is just as important who can access control and updates, and what operators specify about this in procurement.

And a process is only as good as the way it is actually lived.

Werner Bachmann, gunnercooke DACH

The episode (in German) is aimed at operators, project developers, procurement and management. All episodes of “Watt ’ne Law” are available at noeding-voges.com.

Also in pv magazine

pv magazine has also published our announcement on the topic (in German): “Cybersicherheit bei Solaranlagen: Entscheidend ist, wer die Kontrolle hat” (Cybersecurity in solar plants: what matters is who is in control).

Read how we approach data security in PV plants on our data security page.