At LF Energy Summit Europe 2026, Andreas Prins of SUSE argued that as more grid decisions move into software, digital sovereignty depends on whether energy organizations can control, move, inspect, and operate the technology they rely on.
In “From Energy Sovereignty to Digital Sovereignty,” Prins connected Europe’s history of energy cooperation with the digital infrastructure becoming central to grid operations. His central question: how can operators gain the benefits of digitalization without creating new dependencies outside their control?
Europe has built shared energy infrastructure before
Prins began in 1951, when six European governments created the Coal and Steel Community. Five weeks later, engineers from power companies in eight countries formed a separate agreement to coordinate their electricity systems.
Prins compared that engineer-led agreement to an open source license: there was enough common ground to begin collaborating on a real technical problem without first building a larger political structure around it.
For Prins, that history showed the energy sector’s capacity to coordinate around shared infrastructure and offered a model as Europe considers sovereignty in digital technology.
Digitalization creates a question of control
Prins connected that history to the April 28, 2025 blackout on the Iberian Peninsula. Rather than attempting to summarize the investigation, he focused on a broader pattern: grid conditions can move faster than manual processes can respond, making software, real-time visibility, and automated response increasingly important.
“None of this is really a power story. It’s a control story.”
Prins argued that the energy sector has also developed significant dependencies on digital infrastructure. Contracts, he said, do not provide the code, settings, or software supply chain transparency an operator may need when something goes wrong.
“We are not just digitizing the grid. We are handing over real decisions inside the grid to software.”
If organizations do not control that software, Prins argued, the sovereignty problem has not disappeared. It has moved deeper into the technology stack.
Speed, quality, and sovereignty have to move together
The grid needs greater digital capabilities, including modeling, real-time visibility, and automated response. But Prins warned that digital transformation carried out without attention to control can create another form of dependency.
He therefore argued for a strategic digital transformation that holds speed, quality, and sovereignty together, and translated that goal into four concrete abilities:
- Exit: Measure how quickly a workload can actually move from one technology environment to another. Without a real number, Prins argued, an exit strategy remains an assumption.
- Own: Be able to build, sign, patch, and ship software rather than depending entirely on another organization’s release schedule.
- Audit: Be able to assess the code, build process, and secure software supply chain directly.
- Operate: Ensure that internal teams or a chosen partner can run the technology day to day, with sufficient documentation and the freedom to adapt the code when needed.
Prins described all four abilities as crucial to meaningful digital independence or digital sovereignty.
Open source alone does not create sovereignty
“Open source on its own doesn’t make you sovereign.”
Prins said digital sovereignty requires open source together with open standards, the ability to run software wherever an organization chooses, and support under the jurisdiction it chooses. If one of those elements is missing, he said, a meaningful gap remains.
The same principle applies to suppliers. Prins argued that suppliers should be genuinely replaceable, with full source code availability, open standards, deployment choice, and support under a chosen jurisdiction.
The energy sector can build more together
Prins returned to the model that opened the keynote and asked what the energy sector could build if it approached digital infrastructure with the same willingness to collaborate that helped build the interconnected grid.
Operators can create demand for open approaches, suppliers can make choice and replaceability possible, and integrators can help make shared approaches repeatable at broader scale. Prins also pointed to organizations already open sourcing building blocks and sharing technical knowledge through working groups.
Prins pointed to utilities that do not compete with one another and asked why they would not share more, or at least make open source the default.
Measure your exit velocity
Prins closed with a practical test: if the supplier behind an important part of a control room changed its terms, withdrew support, significantly raised its prices, or stopped responding, how long would it actually take to move that workload elsewhere, and who would do the work?
“What is your exit velocity?”
If the answer exists only in a strategy document, Prins argued, the organization does not yet have the operational capability behind that strategy. His closing challenge was to continue the conversation about open source and sovereignty and turn it into capabilities organizations can actually measure.
Watch the keynote
Explore more sessions from LF Energy Summit Europe 2026 on YouTube.
Frequently asked questions
How did Andreas Prins define digital sovereignty?
Prins framed digital sovereignty through four practical abilities: the ability to exit a technology environment, own and rebuild software, audit the code and software supply chain, and operate the technology directly or through a chosen partner.
Why did Prins connect energy sovereignty with digital sovereignty?
Prins argued that grid operations increasingly depend on software and digital infrastructure. As more decisions move into software, maintaining control over critical infrastructure also requires practical control over the technology supporting those decisions.
Is open source enough to achieve digital sovereignty?
No. Prins said open source needs to be combined with open standards, the ability to run software wherever an organization chooses, and support under the jurisdiction it chooses.
What did Prins mean by “exit velocity”?
Prins used “exit velocity” to describe how quickly an organization could actually move an important workload to another platform if a supplier relationship changed, and who would be able to do that work.
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This post used artificial intelligence tools for research, structural assistance, or grammatical refinement. The final content was reviewed, edited, and validated by human contributors to LF Energy to ensure accuracy and alignment with our community standards. We remain committed to transparency in the use of generative technologies within the open source ecosystem.
Last updated: October 30, 2026