LF Energy Summit Europe 2026

Europe's energy transition has hit an inconvenient truth: we cannot build grid fast enough. Investment needs reach €584 billion by 2030 and €1.2 trillion by 2040, yet permitting still takes the better part of a decade, roughly 1,700 GW of renewables sit waiting in connection queues, and in 2024 Germany alone spent €2.8 billion simply managing congestion. When you cannot pour concrete fast enough, the smartest capacity you have is the capacity you already own, and the lever to unlock it is software that is increasingly open and increasingly agentic.
Drawing on real deployments in congestion management, this keynote looks past the hype to where agentic AI is genuinely entering grid operations. The decisive question is not whose model is cleverest, but who is ready to run it: who has the data, the governance, and the operating model to trust AI in the control room. Because the grids that win the transition will not be the ones that buy the most technology. They will be the ones ready to run it.