By Jos Zenner, CTO at Welotec
As a forward-thinking company, Welotec has embraced open source as a strategic imperative. We encourage all our developers, product owners, and product managers to actively participate in open source projects. In collaboration with our customers and partners, we aim to establish open and user-friendly ecosystems that are freely accessible. Our focus lies in the energy and machine building domains.
At Welotec, we believe only open source collaboration can unlock the rapid innovation and customization needed for a customer-centric digital transformation in energy and machine building.
In recent years, free and open source software (FOSS) has become the cornerstone of nearly every industrial application. At Welotec, we have transformed our software development approach, moving away from a “build-it-ourselves” mentality and towards open source.
Fully embracing open source entails becoming an active and responsible member of the global open source community. However, simply utilizing open source is not enough. We are committed to actively contributing back, sharing our code with the world, and fostering the growth of the open source landscape. This is why Welotec has joined LF Energy.
“At Welotec, we believe in the power of open source software. It fosters a collaborative environment where we can learn from each other and share our knowledge – both internally within our team and with the wider coding community. We actively promote a culture of learning and open communication, empowering our employees to engage and contribute to open source projects.”
-Jos Zenner, CTO, Welotec
“We are thrilled to welcome Welotec as an LF Energy member. Welotec currently plays a key role in delivering the hardware on top of which digital solutions can run to optimize the physical world. Within LF Energy, Welotec has already been an active contributor to our digital substation ecosystem and the SEAPATH project, in particular. We’re excited to partner with Welotec to elevate our digital substation open source projects and the vendors, like Welotec, that support them.”
-Alex Thornton, Executive Director, LF Energy
Welotec Contributions to the LF Energy SEAPATH Project
Welotec Engineering is deeply involved in LF Energy’s SEAPATH project, including participating in Technical Steering Committee (TSC) meetings, where we hold a voting member seat. SEAPATH is a real-time platform that can run virtualized automation and protection applications, which is particularly seeing deployments in power substations.
In addition to involvement in the TSC, the Welotec Team actively contributes by working in the project repository, ensuring continuous collaboration and integration. This involvement allows us to drive the project’s progress, especially focusing on market readiness and IT/OT security.
By performing extensive hardware testing in various setups in the lab and sharing the results, Welotec is helping to ensure that our contributions are both practical and impactful. Welotec’s commitment to the SEAPATH project is playing a crucial role in advancing its objectives and delivering valuable insights and improvements.
“At Welotec, we are contributing our expertise as a hardware partner to the SEAPATH project in particular by testing the deployment of the solution on various platforms from our portfolio and feeding the findings back into the community. Among other things, we are placing a particular focus on driving forward the possibilities for commercial use of the solution and scaling deployment.”
-Jan Hille, Solutions Architect, Welotec
LF Energy Drives Open Standards and Open Source with a Special Focus on Digital Substations
LF Energy is at the forefront of advancing open standards and open source technologies, particularly in the realm of digital substations. By nurturing a collaborative environment, LF Energy aims to modernize and enhance the efficiency of power systems. Digital substations, which utilize advanced digital technologies and open source frameworks, offer improved communication, real-time data processing, and enhanced decision-making capabilities.
This initiative reduces costs and eliminates vendor lock-in, allowing for flexible, multivendor architectures that drive innovation and sustainability in the energy sector. Through projects like SEAPATH, along with CoMPAS and others, LF Energy is paving the way for a resilient and future-proof energy infrastructure.
“Joining LF Energy is a significant milestone for Welotec. This partnership highlights our commitment to open-source innovation and positions us at the forefront of transformative energy solutions. It aligns perfectly with our open source strategy, enhancing our ability to develop and implement cutting-edge technologies that drive efficiency, sustainability, and resilience in power systems worldwide. Together with LF Energy, we are excited to advance the digitalization of the energy sector and set new standards for the future.”
-Anton Krupskii, Business Development Manager, Welotec
About the author, Jos Zenner, CTO at Welotec (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joszenner/)
Jos Zenner is the Chief Technology Officer at Welotec GmbH and a member of the steering committee of the vPAC Alliance. He specializes in leading product management and R&D within the digitalization sector, with a particular focus on the electric grid and digital substations. His work leverages technology to accelerate the energy transition. As a thought leader with a profound understanding of the market, Jos Zenner is at the forefront of innovation in this field.
