Questioning Energy Minister Kerry McCarthy, Conservative Shadow Energy Secretary Andrew Bowie said: “The indication that Ming Yang will get the greenlight from the Treasury to supply wind turbine technology to the Greenvolt wind farm in the North Sea is concerning.”
Bowie added that “alarm bells have been sounded by officials in [the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero] and indeed in the Ministry of Defence.”
DESNZ refused to tell POLITICO whether its officials had raised concerns with the Treasury. The Department for Business and Trade declined to comment on whether Gustafsson had raised any security concerns with Ming Yang during last year’s meeting.
Bowie said he, along with other MPs, had been briefed in recent weeks by the Royal Navy “on the vulnerability of our subsea communications and energy infrastructure. … If Chinese-manufactured turbines are installed, security experts have warned that sensors could spy on British seas, defense submarine programs, and indeed the layout of our energy infrastructure.”
Lib Dem MP Pippa Heylings told the Commons: “A former MI6 chief has warned of vulnerabilities, either deliberate or inadvertent, posed by foreign software embedded in our energy infrastructure.”
Britain’s intelligence services
MI5 is currently helping the government establish the extent to which Chinese technology could pose potential security threats, according to The Financial Times, as part of the new Labour government’s audit of policies towards China.
