Linux Foundation Energy member TenneT “open sources” their open source strategy

This post was written by Loek Bakker, Corporate Information Management Office Head at TenneT

TenneT is the first European cross-border electricity transmission system operator (TSO), with activities in the Netherlands and in Germany, providing uninterrupted electricity to over 41 million people. The security of our supply is among the best in Europe, with 99.99% grid availability. With the energy transition, TenneT is contributing to a future in which wind and solar energy are the most important primary sources to produce electricity.

As an LF Energy member, we recognize that open source is the commodity foundation upon which the entire IT industry rests. A recent Synopsis study indicated that 100% of the proprietary software our vendors are using in the energy and utility space have open source inside [1].  Yet, as an industry, we do not manage our software as a community, and we have relative ignorance about what exists within our “black boxes”. The open source model refers to the software development practice that encourages transparent governance and open collaboration to create software for which the original source code (design, code, ingredients) is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. For TenneT, like many other utilities, open source is essential to our strategic success.

TenneT chose to adopt the open source model in 2017 by developing the TenneT Data Platform (TDP). We now want to accelerate the development and adoption of open source for the following reasons:

• TenneT wants to drive the energy transition.
  • Open source is the dominant software model for open innovation efforts in the new digital economy.
• TenneT increasingly uses open source for mission-critical workloads, and this will increase in the future.
  • Open source software is used within mission-critical workloads by over 90% of IT operations across industries. It is the global standard.
• TenneT has a public task and is focused on lowering cost for society.
  • Open source provides opportunities for faster innovation, and lowering overall development and maintenance costs for software.

These reasons closely relate to the renewed strategic goals for TenneT as a TSO, meaning that our open source strategy fully supports TenneT’s strategic direction.

Since we truly believe that open source is one of the great leverage points to accelerate technological paradigm changes which are necessary for the energy transition, we have decided to publish our open source strategy under a Creative Commons license, making it available for everyone to see, share, and use. This will not only improve the quality of our own strategy document, but it can also support other parties in moving forward with open source and creating solutions for the energy transition. And what better way to do this than through the LF Energy initiative, to underline our commitment to LF Energy as a neutral place for collaboration and cooperation.

Click to read TenneT’s full strategy [PDF].

Europe’s Two Largest TSOs Discuss the Call to Open Source and Joining Linux Foundation Energy

Join a webinar with Loek Bakker from TenneT and Lucian Balea from RTE
August 8th at 8:00am PT, 16:00 GMT, 17:00 CET

[1] 2019 OPEN SOURCE SECURITY AND RISK ANALYSIS: Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/open-source-trends-ossra/