Dan Brown, LF Energy, Aarthi Thyagarajan, Shell, & Christophe Villemer, Savoir-faire Linux | OSS North America 2023

This is techstrong tv. Welcome back to the Open Source Summit here in Vancouver. We're here with the folks who are working on LF Energy.

We've got Dan, Hello. Hello. We've got Christo Vilma.

Christop is from Uafa Lennox. And finally we have OTI from Shell. And we're gonna have a conversation about what is going on with open source and energy.

So, Dan, what is the mission of this group? Why does it exist? I don't think a lot of people know it even was Formed.

Yeah. So, uh, Lennox Foundation Energy, or LF Energy started about five years ago. Um, because we realized, uh, at the Lennox Foundation as well as the power sector, um, more generally, that there is a huge challenge that's being faced with digitalization that is necessary to achieve decarbonization of power systems.

Um, your traditional power systems are very top down where utility generates power, transmits it over a, a high voltage grid, distribute it, uh, distributes it over a low voltage grid, and then that goes to your home and business. Um, in the future with distributed energy resources like solar and wind. Um, you're not just gonna have a centralized power plant, you're gonna have a million different power plants, and they're going both ways, and it's spread out all over the place.

Uh, it creates huge complexity. And so that requires a complete redesign of our existing power systems from the ground up. Uh, we argue that open source is the way to do that.

And so that's why we've partnered with, um, power utilities in different countries as well as power generators, like Shell traditional vendors to the power, um, industry like General Electric, uh, as well as technology companies like Microsoft and Google. Um, uh, uh, in addition to startups and other vendors like of warfare, Linux, um, plus researchers and government. And so we're all working together to build open source solutions, uh, for a brand new tech stack for energy systems.

So why did Shell decide to join this? What was in it for Shell? What motivated, you know, it's a huge conglomerate.

Yeah. So like Dan said, um, energy transition is happening in different places at different speeds, and it's very difficult. The top three sectors that are working on it are, um, energy mining and metal industries, how to abate sectors.

So energy is one of the top industry that has to work on it. Um, the motivation behind joining Inex Foundation Energy is, um, to address the challenge that energy decarbonization is not going to be possible with our world ways of collaboration. You need to work with customers and suppliers lot more closer than what we have done.

You also need a technology interoperability where all our partners, customers, suppliers, uh, energy traders come together and work with these co-create solutions with the frictionless flow of data and mediums. And that's possible only with unusual methods of, you know, collaboration and open sources. One such.

All right. I get why she's here, but you're a tech vendor. What did, what motivated you to join this?

Uh, yeah, it's because we are in open source for more than 20 years, and, uh, we think that we can bring our expertise of how to build a open source project to help this, uh, traditional IT or OT actors like utilities and vendors to, uh, transition themself into that new business model. So we began to work three years ago when we joined the elephant and g to work with rte, which is the TSO of France. So transporter of system energetic in France to work on the project and to help, uh, actually the project to be an open source project.

So that's our expertise, and, uh, we give that to the, uh, LF Energy. So what projects are you working on? What do they look like?

What, how many of 'em are there? We've got about two dozen right now. Um, so for instance, Christoff is very involved with the C Path project that's, um, changing your traditional analog power substations to digital.

Um, but we have other things like our Everest project, which is building reference architectures and frameworks for EV charging so that, um, you have standards and different EV charger, different EVs work with different chargers, uh, ensuring on interoperability, um, energy forecasting, our opens step, uh, project forecast, net load on the grid, which is very, very difficult to track with distributed energy resources. Um, and so we're solving those sorts of, uh, problems. We're not there.

There's a lot more that we need to do. We need more developers, we need more projects, we need more, um, uh, members of industry joining in and buying into this. Um, it's, it requires an entire redesign of, uh, business models for utilities, business models for vendors to utilities.

Um, so we're trying to do the, as much of the tech stack as we can in an open and collaborative, uh, uh, way to solve these challenges. Are there specific goals that you have in mind, or is this kind of just an ongoing series of initiatives, or are there things that you're looking at as, uh, benchmarks or metrics that you're trying to hit along the way? I frankly, I have no idea how much carbon is generated by a power plant, but I imagine there's a lot, and is there a goal to kind of reduce that by a certain amount of time?

What are you guys thinking of? Yeah, so, uh, we have our own strategy for net carbon, net carbon future, uh, but coming to what we are doing by our open source, we clearly have, uh, metrics, for instance, technology interoperability. One, uh, we want to definitely work, uh, across the industry sector that is energy sector and also beyond energy sector.

And one of our key metrics is how much of interoperability we achieve by, you know, open sourcing, uh, our tools via Linux Foundation Energy. So last year we opensourced a tool called realtime data iion platform. As you know, data is the heart of any digital initiative.

Having data is one thing, but, um, you know, the key enabler for digital transformation, which drives energy transition is only when the data is easily accessible, it's good quality, and also having uniformity in the structure, et cetera. So that's what this realtime data ingestion platform is about. It's, it's for any time series data, it's a time series data management capabilities.

It can be used for monitoring production, it can be used for tracking water usage, it can be used for hydrogen plants, it can be used for carbon capture and sequestration. Uh, and even for examples like Solar Farm and Wind Farm, uh, you know, forecasting is a very important thing to do to, you know, um, apply for, uh, existing or new renewable, uh, assets. And that's where this time series data injection capability is very important.

So our metrics are really dependent on, um, what we want to achieve. And it, it's currently the technology in shop, So you can't fix something if you can't measure it in the first place. Right.

That kind of is where it starts. What are you seeing from the IT folks in this sector? Because to be honest, we write a lot of sloppy code.

We don't turn our VMs off. You know, we're not really good energy citizens in general, but in the energy sector, are there more challenges than other spaces? What are you seeing?

Yeah, there are huge, uh, challenges because it's, uh, no traditional, uh, OT black box system that needs to evolve. If I'm speaking about, um, substation automation project, I, I'm working on, we see that it's moving virtualization a bit like, I mean, past years in the Telco, there's been a huge move on virtualization. And because of the grids evolve, because of the grids that will, uh, you know, integrate, uh, wind and solar electricity, uh, substation will need the flexibility and virtualization will help.

Uh, that, so this project, the C project, is really a platform of virtualization that will, uh, you know, rev, um, which is the revolution in the control command. And, uh, that will be, um, all for managing, uh, control and, and secure application, uh, into the substation. So There was huge, uh, challenges on cybersecurity, uh, on, on writing good code.

So there is all this expertise on, on testing, on, on securing industrialization of this project that we, uh, we help on, uh, with General Electrics, we are, uh, training on that, uh, solution and rt, which is, uh, developing with us this, uh, this platform. So it sounds like there's a lot of bare metal boxes that could be consolidated in a virtual machine. Exactly.

So what do you need to have happen next? I mean, do you need more companies like Shell to join? Yes.

Is that kind of what you're looking For? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think I kind of mentioned this is really a, uh, a collaboration of the traditional, um, vendors, the power industry itself, governments, academics, uh, technology industry. We need more of all of the above.

We need, we need more of these utilities to buy into this. Um, and, uh, they're starting to, they really have accepted that digitalization is the only way forward. Um, but where they're still, I think more on the fence is with open source specifically.

Um, and so that's why it's very important for the vendors to be supportive, um, and contribute and work with us, uh, to make sure that, um, we have the technologies that we need. And to Artie's point to make sure that they're interoperable. Um, it's never gonna work if this solar panel can't work with this grid or can't, you know, be connected to the same grid as this wind farm.

Everything has to work together, um, and talk to each other and produce data that we can ingest and analyze and utilize for forecasts and, and planning. Um, so yes, all of the above. We need more government and regulatory involvement, frankly, as well.

Um, we need, uh, everywhere in the world, you know, we do en engage a lot with the EU Commission and the US Department of Energy. Um, we've had some discussions with in our Canada, uh, national Resources Canada, um, because they're the ones who at the end of the day, are going to have to implement specific standards, um, to help industry accept them. So shell spent a fair amount of money building some tool that you gave away.

So how'd that conversation go? Did you have to explain it to somebody and say, you know, yeah, we're gonna give this away and it's a good idea and here's why mean, how, how did that evolve? So, um, it's, it's a very good question that you asked.

So, uh, energy transition is a team sport. It's, it's a lot of collective success and individual success. So, um, hence it wasn't very difficult within Shell to explain why we are open sourcing this foundational CAPA capability called, uh, realtime Data transition platform.

Um, having said that, um, it was seen as one of the disruptive, you know, movement at Shell and also our collaborators, uh, really acknowledged that, you know, it's, it's a true digital transformative initiative. Mm-hmm. From a tech stack perspective, are we essentially trying to shrink the stack?

I mean, you talked about virtualization earlier, but there's a lot of things that sit up on top of all of those devices, and is the goal that kind of just shrink the stack so it consumes less energy? Yes. This, this is one way, but I mean, uh, there is plenty of project, you know, because the challenges are huge and there is a project in the end users, uh, consuming on the home, consuming on, on, on the utilities.

And I don't want to speak about the specific project, but there are plenty of projects that needs ARM and, and, and, and ends and developers and investment from the company. So we invest a lot of our research and development in that project. Uh, but we need other company, big company like Shell, but small, small actors to come to join, uh, because, you know, collaboration, it's about sharing and, and giving and receiving.

So, uh, everybody needs to participate on that innovation because, um, we are not enough to achieve all the goals we, uh, we have. Yeah. And to add on to that, as much as, you know, we love getting new members at LF Energy, we more than anything want more contributors.

You don't have to pay anything to go and help write code, fix bugs, um, uh, uh, create new projects. Um, you know, we're all in this together, and so we just want as many developers out there and as many organizations out there to get involved, um, and to, to help us, you know, create this stack, um, and decarbonize our economy. What do you want governments to do?

You mentioned working with them and you know, it's a regulated industry. There's probably plenty of government oversight, and I'm sure there's conversations about that that go back and forth all the time. But what do the governments around the world need to think about as it relates to this kind of project?

Our argument is that they need to understand that open source is the best way to do this. The governments already accept that they need to transform their power systems, and that they need to digitalize and become more software defined. Um, where I think that there's still a lot of education that needs to be done is, um, understanding why open source is the best way to do that.

Um, eliminating vendor lock-in. Going back to interoperability, again, there are so many benefits. We would argue there are a lot of cybersecurity benefits to open source as well.

Um, so we just want them to understand that. And when they are implementing things like the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, um, or different legislation around the world, uh, that they are making open source an option, if not a priority. Do you guys see this as an opportunity to work on cybersecurity with some of the other energy companies?

Because, you know, you are a primary target, as they say. So is this a, a moment in time where we can say, well, if we're working on all this other stuff, maybe we can talk about cybersecurity? Yeah, indeed.

Cybersecurity is one of the top priority in Shell, uh, in the context of open source. We are not thought through that, uh, honestly speaking, uh, but yes, this, this is a very primary, uh, topic at Shell. Mm-hmm.

But we, we see a change in the cyber security in the utility that's, you know, before everybody was hiding the fact that they were attacked or whatever. But now it's not a question of, uh, if I will be attacked, everybody will be attacked, question of resilience. And we see that people and that organization, even utilities needs to share information about that.

And that's, uh, relates to open source, because sharing that data, sharing the threat is, will be your best way to, uh, uh, to combat them and to, to fight it. Mm-hmm. Are you seeing the members working together on hardening the open source software as well?

Because that's part pretty critical in this industry. It's, uh, it's a necessity. I mean, because we are building software that's, uh, will be under regulation, which sometimes needs to be certified, so it has to be hardening from the beginning.

So, uh, and, and we are working on that on the c a project, you know, we are learning, uh, 2000 tests, uh, on, on the platform to make sure that it's compliant to, uh, the national, uh, French security, uh, cyber security agency. So we, we, we work on that framework to make sure that the platform will be compliant to them. Yeah.

And I'll add that, um, that's built into all of our projects, um, uh, at Lennox Foundation Energy, as they advance through, um, uh, uh, maturity stages, uh, they do have to do heavy amounts of security testing. Uh, it's, it's just a requirement or they can't graduate. Um, and we work very closely with the Open source security foundation on, on setting those standards and, and running all of those, um, tests.

It's arguable that kids have a greater appreciation for energy policy and carbonization and things like that. So are you looking to work with the colleges and the high schools to recruit people to help work on this project? We have A lot of universities that are already involved, actually from Stanford to Vanderbilt to R W T H, akin in Germany, Monash and Australia.

Um, that is a, a key, a lot of, a lot of this technology is coming out of universities as well. Um, I see papers all the time from PhD students. I think you're exactly right.

Um, this next generation, it's gonna impact them more than anyone. So of course they're going to be concerned and want to want to work in this field. Mm-hmm.

So, yes, we'll continue doing that. We're also looking at, um, doing more, uh, offering more training opportunities, um, and courses and that sort of thing, uh, to make it easier for folks to onboard these technologies. And, sorry.

No, no, but I, I want to announce what, uh, Dan said because it, it has been really a key, um, asset for the young, uh, engineering developer joined the company recently, especially in Europe, in our office in Europe. That's, uh, the fact that we are part of the f energy that they could work on such a project, uh, that was a key, uh, factor for them to choose us against other company. Are you seeing the same thing at Shell where people are going, yeah, this is, I never thought you guys would be working on something like this, and now they're going, yeah, I'll come work for Shell.

Yeah. So if, if you're talking about young talent and, um, in, in the context of open source, we see a lot of attraction inside Shell, and Shell has got a fantastic community initiative called Shier. I'm not sure if you heard about it.

Uh, it's a community of internal community of about 15,000 people, and we have done 40 hackathons all around the world, and we have a fantastic initiative called, uh, um, Hilda, a residency program where we bring in very young talent from universities and other companies like Amazon and also, uh, across, you know, global hubs of Shell, Netherlands, London, Bangalore, and Houston. And, um, we also collaborate with Udacity extensively for upskilling them. So put together all of this.

Um, yeah, I think we, we, we are in the right part of, uh, nurturing that young talent. Thank you. You have a lot of projects.

What's coming up in the next year? What's gonna be the progression of things? What should we look forward to?

Yeah. Uh, the most immediate thing is, uh, three weeks from today, we will be in Paris for, uh, LF Energy Summit, June 1st and second. Um, so that's a great opportunity to, um, introduce, uh, our projects to a new audience and also enable our, uh, community to get together in person for the first time since 2019, for obvious reasons.

Um, so we're really looking forward to that and the collaboration that, as you know, from being here comes out of, uh, getting together in person. Um, but beyond that, we're looking to onboard more, um, members, uh, particularly power utilities, um, uh, uh, so that they, um, are starting using this type of technology as they move through their digital transformations. Um, and frankly, we're just looking for more projects.

There are so many gaps to fill in the tech stack, um, for these power systems, uh, that we can't write code fast enough. So again, please contribute. All right, folks, you're heard in here.

If you work with these folks, you get to go to Paris. It's a sweet deal. Folks, thanks for being on the show.

Thank you For having us. Thank you so much. All right.

And we'll be back in a minute.