Last week on 3 June, the European Commission presented the European Technological Sovereignty Package, a set of measures to strengthen Europe’s capacity in semiconductors, AI, cloud and open source. The package includes two legislative proposals – the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act – as well as the Open Source Strategy and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy.

The launch of the roadmap was accompanied by the publication of the ENTEC 2 project study “Support for the preparations of a strategic roadmap for digitalisation and AI in the energy sector”, which EUREC and EUREC members prepared. The study consisted of five separate tasks:

• Task 1: Analysis of the benefits and costs of digitalisation and use of AI in energy

• Task 2: Market analysis of AI in energy

• Task 3: Foundation models for the energy sector

• Task 4: Flexibility and heat reuse potential for data centres

• Task 5: Analysis of the open public consultation results for the strategic roadmap

The Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in the Energy Sector sets out how AI and other digital solutions can ensure the environmentally friendly integration of digital infrastructure in our energy system. Focus areas include the integration of data centres into the EU energy system in a sustainable and transparent manner, efficient grid integration while safeguarding water and energy sources, the accelerated deployment of digital and AI solutions to improve and smarten Europe’s electricity infrastructure, and a faster roll-out of smart meters to give consumers more control over their energy use. The roadmap also aims to build sovereign and secure AI models for the energy sector which are trained on European data and developed by European companies as well as simplify the exchange of cross-border energy data. There are three main pillars and a cross-cutting section:

• Pillar 1: Energy for AI – addresses the sustainable integration of data centres into the energy system

• Pillar 2: Digitalisation and AI for the energy system – sets out measures to deploy digital and AI solutions (e.g. smart meters, AI models) across the energy system

• Pillar 3: Data for AI and the energy system – addresses the data governance framework needed to enable smart energy services and AI at scale (e.g. framework for cross-border data exchange)

• Cross-cutting section: trust, cybersecurity and countering hybrid threats, skills and international cooperation (including a proposed Energy Digitalisation Forum starting this year), and implementation

Notably for Pillar 3 (and EUREC’s work on promoting data-sharing practices), the Commission distinguishes between primary use of energy data (operational data exchanges between identified actors for services) and secondary use of energy data (pooling and reuse of energy data beyond its original operational purpose, such as for research and analytics). The Roadmap outlines the Commission’s objectives, namely, to make cross-border energy data exchange simpler, more efficient and predictable by providing common interfaces, and harmonising rules and trust services at EU level. For secondary use of energy data, the focus will be on facilitating the pooling of energy data, establishing trust frameworks for AI in energy, and developing regulatory sandboxes.

The Strategic Roadmap launch was accompanied by a high-level event launching two flagship initiatives: AI.grids, a project to develop a pilot framework for pan-European AI foundation models for grid management and planning, and sustainable integration of data centres, a group of 14 industry associations who have agreed to work together to foster the sustainable integration of data centres in the energy system via a declaration of intent. More information on the Roadmap and accompanying initiatives can be found on the Commission website.