Satellite outage affects remote control of 5,800 Enercon turbines - report

A partial outage of a European satellite provider has affected the operation of about 5,800 wind turbines of Enercon GmbH with a total output of about 11 GW, raising concerns about a potential cyberattack, the German manufacturer told business daily Handelsblatt on Monday.

The disrupted satellite connection has damaged the remote maintenance and control of the wind turbines but they are in operation and there is no risk, Enercon noted. The machines will continue to operate in an automatic mode until the problem is solved.

Enercon has informed the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) about the incident as wind turbines are considered critical infrastructure. The authority assured on Monday that the disruption is not expected to affect power grid stability.

It is unclear whether wind turbines of other manufacturers have been affected.

The problems are a result of service interruptions in Viasat's telecommunication satellite KA-SAT which provides broadband internet access across Europe and the Mediterranean region. The reason for the interruption is not clear but the outage of communication services coincided with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The issue has affected about 30,000 satellite terminals across Europe which are used by various industries.

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