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.
