Announcement

New projects include solutions for power system simulations, integrated data operations, and historical and real-time process data for analytics, joining nearly 20 existing projects to be showcased at LF Energy Summit in June

San Francisco, CA – FEBRUARY 2, 2023 – LF Energy, the open source foundation focused on harnessing the power of collaborative software and hardware technologies to decarbonize our global economies, is pleased to announce recent momentum and plans for 2023 including a new member, several new projects, updates to existing projects, and four events to bring together stakeholders building important technologies to drive the energy transition.

LF Energy is sponsoring a variety of events in 2023 to bring the community together to collaborate and innovate on new technologies to speed digital transformation in the energy sector. These include:

• LF Energy Summit – June 1-2, 2023, Paris, France. LF Energy Summit is returning to an in-person format after three years as a virtual-only event. The summit will gather members of the LF Energy community including foundation members, developers, vendors, utility end users and other energy industry stakeholders to learn about LF Energy and its projects as well as to collaborate and share best practices for developing and implementing open source technologies and standards in the power sector. Speaking proposals are due by February 17.
• SustainabilityCon at Open Source Summit North America – May 10-12, 2023, Vancouver, Canada. This all new event will gather developers, technologists, sustainability leaders and anyone working on technological solutions to decarbonize the global economy, mitigate and address the impacts of climate change, and build a more sustainable future. SustainabilityCon provides a forum to drive open source innovation in energy efficiency and interoperability and clean development practices within industries ranging from manufacturing to agriculture and beyond through collaboration and learning within the community. Speaking proposals are due by February 5.
• LF Energy Embedded Summit at Embedded Open Source Summit – June 30, 2023, Prague, Czechia. All new for 2023, LF Energy Embedded Summit will gather embedded developers with stakeholders from the energy sector for a discussion of how IoT and other hardware can accelerate the energy transition and drive decarbonization. Speaking proposals are due by February 10.
• SustainabilityCon at Open Source Summit Europe – September 19-21, 2023, Bilbao, Spain. This is the European version of the SustainabilityCon event listed above. Information on speaking proposals will be made available in the coming weeks.

Sponsorship opportunities are also available for LF Energy Summit through March 17.

In terms of growth of LF Energy, Atos has joined LF Energy as a General Member. LF Energy members provide funding and resources to support the foundation’s mission of building a unified approach to developing non-differentiating code that can enable utilities, grid operators, electric vehicle makers, energy saving companies and others to develop and implement technologies to transform the power sector.

In pursuit of that mission, LF Energy is also announcing three new open source software projects have launched under its umbrella:

• Dynawo, originally developed by RTE, is an hybrid C++/Modelica open source suite of simulation tools for power systems. It aims at providing power system stakeholders with a transparent, flexible, interoperable and robust suite of simulation tools that could ease collaboration and cooperation in the power system community.
• OpenFIDO, which stands for the “Open Framework for Integrated Data Operations”, aims to enable and support the commercial use of the US Department of Energy’s GridLAB-D technology – hosted as Arras at LF Energy – by utilities, researchers, and vendors of smart grid, renewable energy, and climate-change mitigation technology with special attention to electric energy delivery systems.
• Real Time Data Ingestion Platform (RTDIP), originally developed at Shell, aims to provide easy access to high-volume, historical and real-time process data for analytics applications, engineers, and data scientists wherever they are.

To support all LF Energy projects and digital transformation in the energy sector, Bryce Bartmann, Chief Digital Technology Advisor at Shell, has joined the LF Energy governing board. Bartmann’s expertise in energy systems will be a boon for LF Energy’s projects and communities.

“LF Energy closed out 2022 strongly, with a doubling of our membership, new projects, new contributors, and continued advancement and innovation within existing projects,” said Linux Foundation General Manager, Arpit Joshipura. “This events strategy will enable us to continue that growth while supporting our existing projects and communities. We are optimistic at the prospects for 2023 as urgency increases around the energy transition and developing the technologies necessary to achieve decarbonization goals.”

LF Energy Resources

• Learn about membership opportunities
• Explore the interactive landscape
• Check out our technical projects  
• Read the latest announcements on the blog
• Subscribe to the mailing lists
• Follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn
• Access other resources on LF Energy’s GitHub or Wiki

About LF Energy

A first-of-its-kind initiative, LF Energy provides a 21st century plan of action to solve climate change through open frameworks, reference architectures and a support ecosystem of complementary projects. In addition to the new members, Strategic Members include Alliander, Google, Microsoft, RTE and Shell, in addition to over 50 General and Associate Members from across the energy industry, technology, academia, and government.  Find further information here: https://www.lfenergy.org 

It is with great sadness that we must inform you that our Executive Director, Dr. Shuli Goodman, has passed away following a long battle with cancer. Shuli founded LF Energy with the goal of prolonging the life of our planet, and gave her all in making that goal come to fruition. Shuli was our captain, our inspiration, and our friend. Her vision and leadership not only built LF Energy to be what it is today, but laid the foundation for what it will be in the future. All the successes we will achieve in the years ahead are thanks to her relentless efforts and unmatched passion. She will not only be remembered, but sorely missed by all in our community, especially by her wife Karen, her son Dakota, her soul-sister Lucy, and the many young people whom she helped nurture and grow. Our hearts go out to them.

We do feel it is important to emphasize that the Linux Foundation remains fully committed to the success of LF Energy as a community, recognizing its critical role for the future of our planet. With the enthusiastic backing of Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, General Manager of Projects Mike Dolan, and our dedicated LF Energy team, the Foundation will continue to support the community’s efforts to ensure a healthy and prosperous future.

When Shuli was unwell several months ago, she drafted a statement to prepare the community for what has now come to pass. This was never issued as she experienced a remarkable rebound and we were confident that she was on the road to recovery. However as every one of us knows, cancer can take unexpected turns. In Shuli’s own words at that time, “If you are wondering what you can do to help me now, the answer is simple – redouble your efforts to grow our community by recruiting more developers and member companies, contributing new projects, improving existing ones, and spreading the word that technology is a major part of the solution to global climate change. I look forward to the day when we can all be together to celebrate our victories, and I appreciate your continued support in making those victories come to fruition.” 

The best way we can honor her memory is to make this come to pass.

We have set up a repository in the LF Energy GitHub organization where you can leave thoughts, notes, and stories to share about Shuli and what he meant to us in all. Please add them at https://github.com/lf-energy/memorials/blob/main/shuli-goodman.md.

We also feel it is now appropriate to share a poem she selected at that time with you, in her remembrance.

-The LF Energy Team

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

by Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life,

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,

more accessible;

to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance,

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom,

and that which came to me as blossom,

goes on as fruit.

Open source foundation gains new members and launches new projects to support digital transformation in the power sector

San Francisco, CA – OCTOBER 5, 2022 – LF Energy, the open source foundation focused on harnessing the power of collaborative software and hardware technologies to decarbonize our global economies, is pleased to announce new members, projects, and governing board members have joined the foundation. 

Shell has joined LF Energy as a Strategic Member, the highest level of membership. Areti and Futurewei have also joined as new General Members. Additionally, Microsoft, which had been a General Member, has upgraded its membership to the Strategic level. LF Energy members provide funding and resources to support the foundation’s mission of building a unified approach to developing non-differentiating code that can enable utilities, grid operators, electric vehicle makers, energy saving companies and others to develop and implement technologies to transform the power sector.

In pursuit of that mission, LF Energy is also announcing three new open source software projects have launched under its umbrella:

• Carbon Data Specification Consortium (CDS) is a standard specification that will help to define the raw data to track the carbon intensity of consumed energy and the carbon emissions associated with power systems, to guide grid decarbonization, and decision-making.
• The open source project currently known as GridLAB-D, which aims to develop the next generation power system simulation technology. The project will be rebranded in the coming months.
• OCPP Cloud Connector is a cloud based implementation of the Open Charge Point Protocol, the de-facto standard for electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). The connector will supply a web socket connection in accordance with the specification and transform OCPP protocol specific messaging into a generic set of messages and events, allowing a developer or company to easily integrate EVSE control into new or existing infrastructure.
• Super Advanced Meter is an open source specification and reference software project focusing on a widely applicable smart meter data gateway. It aims at the central device that is installed with almost every energy consumer and thereby serves as the edge node between the transforming grid and delivering products and services to customers.

To support all LF Energy projects and digital transformation in the energy sector, two new industry leaders have joined the foundation’s governing board. Dr. Marissa Hummon, Chief Technology Officer, Utilidata and Dr. McGee Young, Founder & CEO, Watt Carbon, were both elected to the governing board as General Member Representatives. Both executives, and their companies, represent crucial pieces of the decarbonization ecosystem. 

WattCarbon develops decarbonization measurement and verification tools to track the carbon intensity of building energy use. The company helps users reduce carbon footprints by taking into account the availability of zero-carbon energy using data feeds and real-time grid carbon intensity values. Companies often struggle to make the connection between their energy consumption and the availability of renewable energy making calculating carbon emissions difficult. WattCarbon helps resolve those challenges.

Utilidata is a venture-backed software company that optimizes the distribution of electricity through meter-embedded software and utility-integrated data processing and power flow controllers. By continuously monitoring and optimizing the operation of the grid, Utilidata saves energy, lowers the cost of adding more solar generation, batteries and electric vehicle charging, and better detects power flow anomalies that can cause outages and fires.

Dr. Audrey Lee, Senior Director of Energy Strategy, Microsoft, who was previously a General Member Representative remains on the governing board but has transitioned to Strategic Member Representative in light of Microsoft’s upgraded membership. 

“The momentum we have seen in 2022 is nothing short of astounding, with more organizations across energy, technology, academia, government and other sectors coming to realize that the only way to meet decarbonization goals is to work together to develop the necessary technologies,” said LF Energy Executive Director Dr. Shuli Goodman. “We welcome all our new members and projects and look forward to working with this growing community on shared technologies to modernize energy infrastructure globally. We will accelerate digital transformation in support of the energy transition, and mitigate some of the worst outcomes of climate change, through this collaborative approach.”

LF Energy will host an online meeting on November 17, 2022 at 8am Pacific to discuss current activities and plans for 2023; foundation members and others interested in attending may register here.

LF Energy Resources

• Learn about membership opportunities
• Explore the interactive landscape
• Check out our technical projects  
• Join us at upcoming events
• Read the latest announcements on the blog
• Subscribe to the mailing lists
• Follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn
• Access other resources on LF Energy’s GitHub or Wiki

About LF Energy

A first-of-its-kind initiative, LF Energy provides a 21st century plan of action to solve climate change through open frameworks, reference architectures and a support ecosystem of complementary projects. In addition to the new members, Strategic Members include Alliander, Google, Microsoft, RTE and Shell, in addition to over 50 General and Associate Members from across the energy industry, technology, academia, and government.  Find further information here: https://www.lfenergy.org