European Future Technology Summit - EFTS 2024

EUREL, the European umbrella organization for electrical, electronic and information technology engineers, alongside its members under the leadership by VDE from Germany, is focused on building cross-border networks between students, professionals, research, industry, politics, and education. Breaking down barriers and fostering collaboration is essential for creating a prosperous, stable, and peaceful Europe. Engineers in these fields are leading advancements in artificial intelligence, the energy transition, and cybersecurity.

Following the focus on ‘Artificial Intelligence’ at last year's EFTS 2023, VDE and EUREL have dedicated the European Future Technology Summit (EFTS) 2024 to the highly topical subject of ‘Strengthening Resilience of European Power and Communication Networks’. This focus, prompted by Russia's terrorist war of aggression against Ukraine and its negative impact on Europe and the world, highlights the increasing interdependence of power and communication technologies, such as smart grids, and the new risks these dependencies pose during conflicts, cyber threats, and extreme weather events.

At the 2nd European Future Technology Summit (EFTS) in Brussels, the VDE and EUREL placed precisely these topics at the centre of a three-day workshop. 50 students and young professionals from the EUREL member countries met in the heart of European politics to discuss key issues for strengthening the resilience of European electricity and communication networks with experts from science, research and politics at the headquarters of the European standardisation organisation CEN CENELEC. It was also a special honour that two experts from Ukraine reported on the daily challenges faced by engineers there regarding Russian missile attacks on infrastructure and the cyberattacks Russia has been launching against Ukraine since 2008.

Before the start of the workshop phase on Tuesday and Wednesday, the aim on Monday was to get to know the city of Brussels and the European Parliament. After a comprehensive excursion into the history and urban geography of Brussels, a visit to the European Parliament and an exchange with MEP Prof Dr Andrea Wechsler (Group of the European People's Party - Christian Democrats) were on the agenda. MEP Wechsler spent almost two hours answering questions from the 50-strong group of young and prospective engineers. As a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, Ms Wechsler is a top contact person. The frank insights that Andrea Wechsler gave the young engineers were very exciting and very authentic - far removed from the typical ‘politician speak’. With her very engaging manner, Andrea Wechsler impressively illustrated to the young voters the importance of political work in Brussels and emphasised the value of international cooperation.

She definitely left a lasting impression on the group and encouraged many of those present in their professional, personal and even political commitment. The exchange was also an incentive to further promote European cooperation in the technical and engineering fields. This is also part of the DNA of EUREL and the VDE - the largest technology organisation in the EU. With the EFTS 2024 group, MEP Wechsler, newly elected to the European Parliament, welcomed her first official group of visitors to the European Parliament - something that will be remembered on all sides.

Alexander Nollau, Head of Energy, VDE Standardisation Organisation DKE, explored the question in his opening workshop What do we need for a secure and future-proof Electricity Grid? After a brief digression into the more than 130-year history of the VDE and the structures of European standardisation, the relevance of renewable energies as a component of resilient grids in today's world and the challenges and expected future developments were outlined. Alexander Nollau provided answers to the question of which components are essential for future-proof grids, outlined the vision of the Most Electric Society and described paths to a net-zero future. He concluded by saying that digital, flexible and resilient solutions, supported by appropriate regulatory frameworks and technological innovations, are essential for a secure and future-proof electricity grid. It is also crucial that all stakeholders - from regulators, suppliers and consumers - play an active role in shaping the grids of the future.

Dr Sebastian Hallensleben, Head of Artificial Intelligence & Digital Trust Department VDE, Chairman of Committee AI and Digital Trust EUREL, Chair of StandICT External Advisory Group and Technical Working Group in Trusted Information EU Commission, Chair Joint Technical Committee 21 ‘Artificial Intelligence’ CEN and CENELEC, AI Expert for UNESCO and OECD, then highlighted the digital and artificial intelligence component with his presentation The emerging AI standardisation ecosystem in Europe, focusing on current and planned standardisation activities in Europe and the considerations of how a European AI ecosystem can be completed after the AI Act.

Elena Santiago Sid, Director General of the European standardisation organisations CEN and CENELEC, took the EFTS participants on a journey into the world of standardisation and its influence on strengthening resilience: How can European standards strengthen the resilience of European power networks and grids? When it comes to standardisation in the energy sector, she sees (geo)political challenges in the area of tension between Europe's geopolitical ambitions and many political goals. In her view, standardisation must serve to improve energy and supply security and meet climate targets. It also requires massive investment in clean efficient energy, with renewables fully integrated into a resilient grid. All with the aim of increasing Europe's energy resilience. For all of this, the rapid development of standards and the rapid introduction of new technologies and, above all, the introduction of smart grids are essential.

Dr Jacek Nowicki, Expert - Electrical Power Systems, Nuclear Safety and Security Department, National Atomic Energy Agency, Poland, Former EUREL President and former Secretary General of Association of Polish Electricians (SEP), explained in his presentation Nuclear Power and Energy Storage: Pillars for European Energy Resilience how nuclear energy and energy storage can contribute to Europe's resilience. His opening statement was that the world is unfortunately not perfect - meaning that CO2 emissions are too high. He outlined global energy production and developments in Europe with many numerical examples. The image of the duck curve was very memorable. The duck curve refers to a graphical representation of the demand for electricity from the grid on days when solar energy production is high and demand on the grid is low. When plotted on a graph, the lines and curves form a clear duck-like shape. Finally, the potential of the various energy storage technologies and the European Parliament's decision on nuclear energy in November 2023 were analysed. Following Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, Europeans realised that the issue of access to energy resources from Russia, particularly natural gas, could become the subject of political and economic games overnight. The Russian aggression finally led to the European Parliament's change of heart to include nuclear energy in the group of green technologies.

Prof Dr Michael Bäcker, Member of the Board of Directors of the superconductivity interest group ivSupra, used the stage to present the potential of electricity transport using superconductivity: Superconductivity - Key Technology for the Energy Transition. According to him, a superconductor changes the paradigms in energy technology. What followed was a technological deep dive into superconductor technology paired with concrete figures, areas of application and existing test scenarios.

Frank Borchardt, Senior Project Manager at Forum Network Technology/Network Operation VDE, outlined the challenges of cross-border electricity transport in his presentation Cross-Border Grid Connections: Ensuring a Stable Trans-European Network. He answered the question of why the resilience of the European electricity and communication grids is urgently needed as follows: An interconnected system - from the Algarve in Poland to the Donbass in Ukraine: 26 interconnected nations, 31 transmission system operators, 350,000 km of transmission lines (voltage ≥110 kV), 495 million people supplied. It is important to realistically categorise the threat scenarios for critical infrastructures - the dimensions have changed dramatically following the Russian attack on Europe's values. There has been a significant increase in cyber warfare in particular. His take-away facts were: a) A resilient energy system requires constant efforts. Digitisation is not only a decisive factor for the ‘good guys’. b) The development of a uniform infrastructure for smart metering systems and smart grids requires a secure ecosystem that relies on standards that go far beyond NIS 2, CER, etc. c) The day-to-day business of cyber security starts with understanding where an attack is likely to occur and how it starts. Even firewalls do not offer 100 % protection.

The traditional VDE Summer Reception Brussels took place as part of the VDE/EUREL European Future Technology Summit - EFTS. Markus B. Jaeger, VDE Global Head of Political Affairs, opened the VDE Summer Reception as host in front of over 150 international guests at the TownHall Europe event location near the European Parliament. The theme of the evening was aligned with the EFTS: Uncertain Times: Between War and Peace - What should a resilient European energy sector look like?

In his opening remarks, Jaeger emphasised that power supply and communication technologies are increasingly interdependent. Digital solutions depend on stable communication connections - and these in turn depend on a stable power supply. In times of tense security situations and wars, such as the Russian attack on European freedom, cyber threats and extreme weather events, it is precisely these dependencies that harbour a whole new range of risks. It is crucial to create the framework for strengthening the resilience of Europe's electricity and communication networks for the benefit and safety of all people in Europe.

Wolfgang Niedziella, Managing Director within VDE Group and President CENELEC, then officially welcomed the guests on behalf of the VDE. In a brief journey through time, he outlined the motivation behind the founding of the VDE over 130 years ago by Werner von Siemens and drew a chronological arc between the technology of electricity 130 years ago and the technology of artificial intelligence in 2024. Both technologies represented milestones in the technological history of mankind. Like electricity, AI must also be put at the service of people and be safe to use. This safety could be provided with the established standardisation, which the VDE is working on at full speed.

Following the keywords ‘tense security situations and wars’, Markus B. Jaeger handed the stage over to Galyna Petrushka, Communication Director of Lvivoblenergo, Lviv/Ukraine and Lyudmyla Polova, IT Director of Lvivoblenergo, Lviv/Ukraine. The two experts from Ukraine outlined the challenges that energy suppliers in Ukraine face daily due to Russian airstrikes on infrastructure and how Russia's cyberwar activities have steadily increased over the last ten years. These are challenges that have not had to be overcome in this extreme intensity in Europe for more than 75 years. However, both experts from Ukraine were certain that ‘in the end, light will prevail over darkness’.

After this first-hand report, the evening's host introduced the debate on the evening's content. Markus B. Jaeger: ‘Europe can learn a lot for the future from these experiences. What must we learn from the Russian attack on our common freedom? How can we make our energy supply and energy transport throughout Europe more resilient? One solution is to maximise the diversity of energy production. Renewables have an important role to play in this. With so many players in the electricity grid, we also need to focus on digital components. These two components - energy and digital tools - must be securely connected. So, when we realise that modern power grids increasingly need a digital component and that in some cases AI will also have to be used in the future, we are not opening a new security-relevant gateway for sabotage. Are we opening Pandora's box with an additional digital component?’

Dr Sebastian Hallensleben, Head of Artificial Intelligence & Digital Trust Department VDE, Chairman of Committee AI and Digital Trust EUREL, Chair of StandICT External Advisory Group and Technical Working Group in Trusted Information EU Commission, Chair Joint Technical Committee 21 ‘Artificial Intelligence’ CEN and CENELEC, AI Expert for UNESCO and OECD and Alexander Nollau, Head of Energy, VDE Standardisation Organisation DKE discussed this issue with the guests.

Both agreed that - especially after the two keynote speeches by their Ukrainian colleagues - resilience is a very important topic. ‘Europe is very vulnerable, especially when it comes to energy and communication infrastructure.’ The Russian attack on Ukraine taught a different lesson: Europe had to wean itself off Russian gas almost overnight. Other options were found relatively quickly. Without problems, without dramatic effects on consumers or industry. The decision to stop using Russian gas was a political and moral decision, not a technical one. The decision was made irreversible by the destruction of North stream. ‘So, Europe already has a lot of resilience. The energy transition was already initiated in 2011, but gas was still needed as a bridging technology. In addition to resilience, the technological and economic dependence on China must increasingly be addressed. ‘We need to focus on sovereignty and resilience in Europe.’ A big but was raised: What about deliberate sabotage - including by unfriendly states? Is Europe really equipped to deal with this? As a reminder: tampering with drinking water in military facilities. Sabotage of the entire French high-speed railway network with only four minor arson attacks on the opening day of the Olympic Games. Has Europe been naive for far too long? There have been calls for more military thinking, more ‘thinking in scenarios’. Do we in Europe need to question our fundamental openness? ‘In general, open data is an advantage, but data on electricity, communication and water infrastructure should be filtered and not be accessible to everyone,’ was one demand made during the discussion.

In 2022, for example, there were no physical actions such as the recent attacks on the railway in France, but there were many foreign actions in the information sector. ‘We are in the middle of the age of AI-driven disinformation. We are frighteningly unprepared for it.’ The question discussed afterwards was how all this adversity can be prevented and, if it does occur, how it can be remedied. One of the theses was that the energy transition is no longer just about saving the planet, but also about national security - a thesis that has not yet been formulated so drastically. The fact is that decentralised energy generation with renewable energies is inherently more resilient than large, centralised power plants, which can easily fall victim to missile fire and sabotage. However, this assumption is based on the fundamental principle of networking renewable energies. In practice, not many renewable energy systems are currently able to operate in stand-alone mode, as the energy storage systems are still lacking. This will improve with the increasing use of home battery storage systems. Question: But do we also have the right military mindset? Do we know when to stop our special love of processes, safety and environmental regulations? ‘This thinking and acting with double and triple security certainly makes sense in times of peace, but in times of crisis a reprioritisation must take place. What if parts of the EU are without electricity, do we need a European strategic reserve for the supply of renewable energies? Bunkered panels and inverters instead of oil and gas?

Is hydrogen also suitable for such a strategic reserve - after all, it would also be a storage medium for energy? As an energy source produced in Europe, does it offer an opportunity for independence? The fact is that we need electrolysers and fuel cells in large quantities and at every level of granularity throughout Europe to bridge the dark and wind doldrums. This is where European and national policymakers need to make coordinated and strategic decisions: buy or produce.

Back to the image of Pandora's box that was presented at the beginning: what is the state of cyber resilience in the European Union, in the member states, in companies and private households in Europe? With the Cyber Resilience Act, the European Union has created a truly world-leading approach. There is also a clear picture of data flows from the perspective of sovereignty, e.g. the Data Act.

So, if we now draw an overall picture of energy and communication in a symbiosis, where energy transmission is to take place across EU borders, strategic planning for a pan-European network must be ensured. Energy generation in Europe is diverse: plenty of wind and sun in southern Europe, plenty of hydro energy in Scandinavia. Resilience must be considered at all levels - especially in an increasingly digitalised grid: What are the new threats? Are we not making ourselves even more vulnerable? What is the equivalent of the Huawei discussion for the electricity infrastructure? What do we need to do in Europe? There is no alternative to digitalising the grids. We also need to tear up the roads to lay new cables. Now, it is not yet apparent that this will also be realised in individual private households. For the latter, smart meters would be an essential prerequisite for the digitalisation of the grids to predict consumption/demand profiles. When it comes to smart meters, there are still too many national differences in Europe. Italy, for example, is further ahead than Germany in terms of the capability and introduction of smart meters. In the end, what we urgently need is a European vision for our common energy and communications infrastructure - also from a military-strategic perspective. The era of post-war peace romanticism, fuelled by the fall of the Iron Curtain and the interim rapprochement, has been over since February 2022. Standardisation and certification are the tools and key to Europe's strategic path towards a resilient and sovereign energy and communications infrastructure. However, enough electrical engineers is also key. We need to train more of them in Europe. We are slowly and steadily running out of heads and hands to tackle the technological challenges. We need experts throughout Europe. We need a strong New Green Deal in Europe: environmental protection, economy, safety and education.

Before the culinary and social part of the VDE Summer Reception began, Fabienne Dezutter, EUREL Secretary General, honoured the winning teams of the EUREL International Management Cup (IMC) 2024 from Romania (2nd and 3rd place). The winning team from Germany was unable to attend the ceremony in Brussels. In addition, the winning team of the inaugural IMC Champions League - a competition between previous IMC award winners - was chosen - it comes from Sweden.

The EUREL PhD Best Paper Award was also presented for the first time. One of the jurors, Prof Dr Andreas Ulbig from RWTH Aachen University, took the opportunity to personally present the award in Brussels. First place went to Lia Gruber from Austria, 2nd place went to István Táczi from Hungary and 3rd place to Stefan Baumgartner from Austria.

Galyna Petrushka, Communication Director of Lvivoblenergo, Lviv/Ukraine, kicked off the 2nd workshop day of EFTS 2024 after her keynote speech at the VDE Summer Reception the evening before. With her presentation The information policy of the energy company during the war - How can Ukraine enhance Resilience and Protection in Energy Production and Supply? she gave a first-hand account of the situation. She described the traditional way of transporting electricity from the production site to the consumer in peacetime and how this traditional route is being systematically destroyed by Russian missile and drone attacks. In addition to maintaining and rebuilding the electricity supply, communication with the many millions of people affected in Ukraine is also a major challenge. In addition, Russian disinformation campaigns and hacker attacks are making serious communication with Ukrainian energy suppliers much more difficult. The Russians' goal is clear: to wear down the civilian population in addition to the missile, bomb and kamikaze drone attacks. But the people of Ukraine are standing together and fighting for their freedom in all areas. This will is fascinating. Few people could imagine what it means to have no electricity for 14 hours a day. What it means, for example, not to have a permanently running fridge at 40 degrees in summer. That changes a society. But those who manage to adapt will survive. Light always triumphs over darkness.

Lyudmyla Polova, IT Director of Lvivoblenergo, Lviv/Ukraine, dedicated her presentation Strategic Cyber Attack: How Russia prepared for the War with Ukraine Years in advance - Practical experience in cybersecurity of critical infrastructure during wartime to Russia's cyberwar activities. It has been documented since 2007 that Russian cyberattacks are very closely linked to political developments: 2007 - Escalation of Russian-Estonian relations, 2008 - A cyberattack on Georgia during the Russian-Georgian war led to the successful hacking of 54 Georgian military, government and financial websites. 2013-2014 - Attacks on the information systems of private companies and state institutions in Ukraine, along with the massive use of netbots to confuse the information field, mislead people and spread rumours, during the pro-Western revolution and the Russian armed invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. 2017 - a large-scale hacker attack using a variant of the Petya virus disrupted the operations of Ukrainian state-owned companies, institutions, banks, media and industrial enterprises. At present, daily cyber-attacks are at an extremely high level. They are aimed at destabilising society and spreading disinformation. The second area of focus is attempts to damage critical infrastructure. The attacks are carried out in several phases over a longer period. There are constant attempts to penetrate via various vectors. Primary infection modules have a digital signature and do not contain malicious code that can be detected by antivirus programs. Account takeovers and privilege escalations are performed. The infection files are distributed covertly within the attacked infrastructure. Hackers build secure communication channels to their command and control (C&C) servers. The active phase of the attack takes place without using files or storing data. As weaknesses in cyber security that lead to successful hacker attacks: Inadequately protected infrastructures: Non-segmented network infrastructure (poorly secured communication channels and data access, delayed updates to operating systems and software); outdated security approaches (no systematic approach to building cybersecurity, lack of intrusion detection systems, no cyber incident response tools, no attack response procedure, no post-attack recovery plan); Decentralised approach to cyber security (no central monitoring and management of cyber security, lack of enforcement of security policies, no accreditation procedures for partners, no overall infrastructure plan and no complete information on assets); Staffing issues (lack of understanding of cyber security issues, not enough qualified specialists).

Agustín Díaz-Pinés, Deputy Head of Unit of the Future Connectivity Systems Unit in DG CNECT, gave an overview of the activities undertaken by the EU Commission together with NATO to protect Europe's critical infrastructure in his presentation Key Areas for Resilience and Critical Infrastructure Protection: the case of Submarine Cable Infrastructure. He began by presenting the status quo using various figures relating to the complementary role of terrestrial, satellite and submarine connectivity: Over 99% of intercontinental data traffic is carried via submarine cables; more than 60% of international data traffic is carried via submarine cables operated by private companies; since 2012, large non-EU providers have been investing in their own infrastructures, leading to strategic dependencies; the NATO Critical Submarine Infrastructure Coordination Cell is to address the security of submarine cables and the importance of submarine cable infrastructures. The EU has been very active since 2021 to strengthen security aspects of critical infrastructure.

Dr Stefan Küppers, Chief Technology Officer, Westenergie AG, Vice-Chairman ETG VDE, is one of the authors of the VDE paper More resilience for power and communication networks in Germany - how do we deal with the increasing interdependencies? In his presentation Improving the Resilience of Power and Telecommunication Networks in Germany, he focussed on strategies for restoring damaged networks and training the specialist personnel involved, using Germany as an example. He summarised how we can keep our systems resilient: We must create transparency, the inventory must be monitored and classified, there must be planning for crisis scenarios, staff and end users must be trained.