Linux Foundation Energy Announces its First US Investor Owned Utility Member, Research into AI for Energy Systems, and Dates for LF Energy Summit

Other recent momentum includes a new open source project for power system optimization and case studies demonstrating real world impact of open source on energy systems

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – April 22, 2025 – LF Energy, the open source foundation focused on harnessing the power of collaborative open technologies and standards to accelerate the energy transition, announced the foundation’s momentum in early 2025. This includes Canadian utility Hydro-Quebec moving from the General Member level to become a top-tier Strategic Member, new members Southern California Edison and Aetheros, a paper on the potential for AI be used to speed the energy transition, a new open source project focused on power system optimization, and much more. Additionally, the foundation has announced the dates and locations for LF Energy Summit Europe and North America, which will provide venues for stakeholders to learn and collaborate on open source solutions for energy.

LF Energy Summit Europe and North America Dates Announced

LF Energy Summit returns again for 2025, expanding this year to encompass two events. LF Energy Summit Europe will take place September 10-11 in Aachen, Germany. Registration is now open, and speaking proposals are being accepted through May 25. Additionally, the all new LF Energy Summit North America will take place October 3 in Montreal, immediately following the CIGRE 2025 International Symposium. Registration for this event will open in May.

LF Energy Summits gather the LF Energy community including electric utilities, technology vendors, global energy companies, researchers, and other industry stakeholders to learn about LF Energy and its projects, collaborate, and share best practices.

Hydro-Quebec Upgrades to Strategic Member

Hydro-Quebec, the largest electrical utility in Canada, which joined LF Energy last year as a General Member, has upgraded its membership to the Strategic level. This is the highest level of membership in LF Energy, and is a clear indication of the benefits the utility is deriving from open source community participation. Strategic Members help lead the LF Energy community thanks to seats on the Governing Board and Technical Advisory Council. Sébastien Lussier will represent Hydro-Quebec on the Governing Board and Moïse Kamgoué Kameni on the Technical Advisory Council.

New Members Demonstrate Growing Industry Support

Two new members have recently joined LF Energy. Southern California Edison (SCE) and Aetheros have both joined at the General level. SCE is the first investor-owned utility in the United States to join LF Energy, demonstrating growing support for open source solutions to the energy transition in that region. 

LF Energy members provide 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, sophisticated energy buyers and others to develop and implement technologies to transform the power sector.

New Grid2Op Project to Support Innovation in Power System Optimization

Developed by RTE France, Grid2Op was initially created as a platform for power grid research and AI-driven automation. It has since evolved into a widely adopted tool in academia and industry, supporting innovation in power system optimization. The project has now been accepted into LF Energy, where Grid2Op will benefit from a larger open source community, fostering collaboration and advancements in sustainable energy solutions.

Research Reports Explore LF Energy’s Impact, and the Promise of AI for Energy Systems

LF Energy recently released its 2024 Annual Report. The report provides an in-depth look at the progress made over the past year and what’s ahead for the future of open source in energy. The content is relevant to LF Energy members, energy utilities, researchers, technology vendors, and other stakeholders looking to understand the role of open source in the energy transition.

Additionally, LF Energy published a new paper, “Unlocking AI’s Potential for the Energy Transition Through Open Source”, which explores how open source innovation is essential to accelerate AI adoption in the energy industry and deliver on its promises. The paper not only explores the current ecosystem of AI projects for energy systems, but also provides recommendations of how stakeholders should approach AI readiness.

LF Energy Joins EPRI-led Open Power AI Consortium

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has launched the Open Power AI Consortium, with LF Energy as a founding member. The purpose of the consortium is “to drive the development and deployment of an open AI model tailored for the power sector, accelerating AI adoption to reduce operating costs while improving the energy customer experience”.

Upcoming Events

Beyond the two LF Energy Summits, LF Energy will host or participate in a number of events in the coming months:

• Open EV Charging Workshop at CharIN Testival - May 15, 2025, Detroit
  • Hosted at the American Center for Mobility campus, the workshop will explore open source technology as a solution for EV charging reliability, efficiency, and interoperability. The workshop will offer educational sessions with experts from the EV charging industry to discuss how to speed deployment of reliable charging infrastructure nationally and internationally.
• Power Grid Model Meetup - May 21, 2025, Delft, Netherlands
  • Power Grid Model is an open source project from LF Energy and provides a calculation engine that is increasingly essential for DSOs. It offers a standards-based foundation enabling real-time power systems analysis, simulations of electrical power grids, and sophisticated what-if analysis. This hybrid in-person/online event will include a full day agenda, with the opportunity to socialize afterwards for in-person attendees.
• Open Source Summit North America - June 23-25, 2025, Denver
  • LF Energy Ambassador and Governing Board Member Christophe Villemer of Savoir-faire Linux will present a talk titled “LF Energy SEAPATH : Building an Open Source Ecosystem for the Energy Industry” on June 23 at 5:45pm in Bluebird Ballroom 3C.

EVerest and SEAPATH Case Studies Show Real World Value of Open Source Energy Projects

Rather than replace 191 outdated and unreliable EV chargers upon taking over a concession in the Netherlands, Qwello and Park&Charge opted to refurbish the chargers using LF Energy’s EVerest software stack. This open source platform, combined with the PhyVERSO charge controller co-developed by Qwello, Pionix, and Phytec, provided a robust and future-proof solution. This initiative demonstrates how collaboration and technology can breathe new life into aging assets, mitigate the risk of stranded assets, and align with global sustainability goals. Read the full case study.

RTE, the French transmission system operator, has successfully implemented SEAPATH as the virtualization environment for its new generation of Protection, Automation, and Control (PAC) systems, known as R#SPACE. This fully digital, IEC 61850-based multi-vendor PACS leverages SEAPATH to enable high-availability and real-time virtualization in substations. Since the end of 2023, the first substation using SEAPATH has been operating seamlessly, with a roadmap targeting 100 deployments by 2030. Read the full case study.

Project News Updates

• Version 1.0 of LF Energy SEAPATH, an open source software hypervisor designed for IEC 61850 Digital Substation Automation Systems, is now available. Version 1.0 is the first fully production ready version of SEAPATH, merging the two prior branches of the software into one and providing support for multiple operating systems including Debian and Yocto.
• LF Energy CitrineOS, the premier open source Charging Station Management System software stack, has released version 1.6, and now supports OCPP 1.6. This milestone expands CitrineOS’s compatibility, enabling a broader range of electric vehicle (EV) chargers to leverage its modular, extensible architecture.
• LF Energy announced the latest release of OpenSynth, v0.0.6, bringing several powerful new features and performance improvements to the platform. The new release will accelerate development of machine learning models for energy consumption prediction, work on grid optimization, and testing of new smart meter technologies.
• Recently, both Centre for Net Zero and TU Delft shared a combination of synthetic and real data with the LF Energy OpenSynth community. These datasets are helping build up a diverse database with input from around the world, and make it far easier to perform accurate energy modeling activities while ensuring security and privacy of real-world data.
• The official release of the LF Energy TROLIE Java Client SDK 1.0.0 is now available. This open source client SDK, licensed under Apache 2.0, enables Java applications to seamlessly interact with TROLIE servers, implementing the Transmission Ratings and Operating Limits Information Exchange (TROLIE) API.
• LF Energy has announced v4.6.0 of OperatorFabric, a modular, extensible, industrial-strength, and field-tested platform for systems operators. OperatorFabric includes several features essential for electricity, water, and other utility operations.
• The LF Energy PowSyBl community has released powsybl-dependencies 2024.4.0, which concludes the last PowSyBl release train. PowSyBl is an open source library dedicated to electrical grid modeling and simulation. Noteworthy new features include voltage level topology model conversion and adding network events to IIDM API.
• LF Energy FlexMeasures v0.24 is now available, with more expressive congestion modeling.

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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. Strategic Members include Alliander, Google, Microsoft, RTE and Shell, in addition to over 60 General and Associate Members from across the energy industry, technology, academia, and government. Find further information here: https://www.lfenergy.org.