There’s the Linux Foundation, that body that we all know and respect to act as stewards of the Linux kernel and champion the use of open source technologies first and foremost for their efficiency as well as their (cost & programmatic) effectiveness. Then there’s LF Energy, that part of the Linux Foundation that is dedicated to solving climate change through open frameworks, reference architectures and a support ecosystem of complementary projects.
The group is coming into the end of the year on a strong note, announcing today five new open source projects that will advance digital energy technologies including battery storage, grid resilience, EV charging, transmission facility ratings and open source sustainability data and research.
These new projects, which come out of the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and industry organizations such as GE, AmpLabs and others, are said to be a step to building an open source tech stack to accelerate the energy transition. They are hoped to help us (i.e. the planet) to achieve our goal of a decarbonized energy system through open source technologies and collaborative development methodologies.
A call to ‘energy stakeholders’
“LF Energy’s momentum is truly astounding, however we cannot move fast enough to build the technologies necessary to accelerate the energy transition,” said LF Energy Interim executive director Arpit Joshipura. “I call on all energy stakeholders to get involved by open sourcing their internal tools, contributing to open source communities both at LF Energy and elsewhere, and to generally collaborate with one another to ensure we make every effort to decarbonize power systems to reduce the worst outcomes of climate change.”
The LF Energy Technical Advisory Council has voted to accept five new projects into the foundation, bringing the total to 30. These projects address a variety of technical requirements across power systems, including battery storage, grid resilience, EV charging, transmission facility rating, and open source sustainability research.
The new projects include the LF Energy Battery Data Alliancem which was created to bring battery companies together to work jointly to unify how batteries are handled in terms of software. Battery data is core to creating a decarbonized economy and power systems, yet companies waste tremendous amounts of time implementing battery data schemas, integrations/conversions, typical calculations, etc. The Battery Data Alliance project was contributed to LF Energy by AmpLabs.
LF Energy CitrineOS offers a community-tested open source software for charger management which drives forward adoption of the OCPP 2.0.1 protocol resulting in more reliable charging networks worldwide. GRIP (Grid Resilience and Intelligence Platform) is designed to help electric grid operators anticipate, mitigate against, and recover from the effects of extreme weather events.
Open Source Sustainability Ecosystem Report
Open Sustainable Tech is an informative platform and open science community that explores the impact, potential and strategies of the open source movement for sustainable technology development, business and transition. Earlier this year, LF Energy partnered with the project’s maintainers to release the 2023 Open Source Sustainability Ecosystem Report.
… and finally (for now) TROLIE (Transmission Ratings and Operating Limits Information Exchange, pronounced like “trolley”) aims to establish an open conformance standard and cultivate a software ecosystem to accelerate the implementation of reliable, secure, and interoperable systems for the exchange of transmission facility ratings and related information.
As energy represents infrastructure critical to the operation of modern society, it is argued to be essential for stakeholders take all available steps to ensure its security. This is why LF Energy and OpenSSF have released a free whitepaper on how critical open source software is to the innovation and transformation of our energy infrastructure, and how to use it in a way that shields against cyber threats.
