Who Actually Owns the Data Behind Europe's Energy Transition?
15:10 - 15:30, 20th of May (Wednesday) 2026 / Innovation
Europe is investing hundreds of billions to control its own energy future — renewables, smart grids, distributed generation, electrification. Energy independence is the stated goal.
But there's an irony nobody talks about: the data that runs this new energy system flows through infrastructure we don't control. Foreign clouds, foreign vendors, foreign dependencies. We're replacing gas pipelines with data pipelines — and asking even fewer questions about who owns them.
This isn't a cybersecurity talk. It's a strategic one. As NIS2 and IEC 62443 take effect across Europe, operators will be forced to answer a question they've been avoiding: who actually controls your operational data, and what happens when that answer changes overnight?
Drawing on real deployments with Swiss energy and industrial operators, I'll make the case that data sovereignty isn't a compliance checkbox — it's the foundation of every decision you'll make in the energy transition. And the window to act is shorter than you think.
