Informal Energy Council: how electricity powers Europe’s digital future, and how digital powers an electric future

It’s back-to-school season, and Europe’s energy ministers got their first class of the term.

This week, on the 4th and 5th, EU energy ministers met in Copenhagen for an informal meeting under the auspices of the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU 2025. A moment to confront Europe’s twin challenges of security and competitiveness while opening the door to its digital future.

For Eurelectric, it was a timely stage to start delivering on the 2025-2027 Presidency commitments: clean customer-driven electrification; resilient energy security; and a digital transformation that future-proofs Europe’s power system. In line with that third priority, our Secretary General, Kristian Ruby, joined ministers for the working-lunch discussion today, where he shared the power sector’s perspective on artificial intelligence (AI) and digitalisation.

In this week’s Friday Feature, we take a look at why thinking about AI and energy together matters, what changes are already unfolding in the power sector, whether Europe can keep up with the demand digital is creating, and how to seize AI’s opportunities while keeping the risks at bay.

AI, AI, and … some more AI

AI is everywhere: it’s in our schools, our supermarkets and our smartphones. It writes, it translates, it predicts – and it is rapidly becoming a defining force across economies.

So why should AI not also shape the very sector it relies on most: electricity? After all, the way we produce and consume power has, itself, transformed. The simple, centralised power system we know from past decades is long gone. Today, our energy landscape is being redefined by three overlapping dynamics: decentralisation, decarbonisation and digitalisation.

This trio reshuffles the cards of a game we thought we knew how to play. Control of the system is being lost as electricity is produced and consumed across multiplying distributed energy resources (DERs). Consumers are turning into prosumers with less certain demand profiles, complexifying the system. Intermittent renewables bring variability, while digital platforms make energy flows more visible but increase the surface area for potential malicious attacks. The game is no longer about steady supply and predictable demand, but about managing a shifting, decentralised system where disruption can come from weather patterns or cyberattacks alike.

How is the electricity sector integrating AI?

AI is already finding its way into the day-to-day operations of Europe’s electricity system.

At the level of generation, electricity producers are applying machine learning to forecast weather patterns. For wind and solar – where output depends on ever-shifting natural weather conditions – AI models can predict generation with much greater accuracy than human analyst counterparts. Better forecasts mean smoother operations, fewer fossil backup plants and ultimately lower emissions and costs. Over time, this could evolve into fully autonomous, self-optimising power plants across the system.

At the level of distribution, distribution system operators (DSOs) are experimenting with automated voltage control. For now, this prevents surges and outages. In the future, it could lay the foundations for self-healing grids that detect and resolve problems before customers even notice them.

And at the level of the consumer, retailers are starting to use AI to personalise services and help households optimise their energy use. In the future, we could see the rise of agentic AI – intelligent systems acting on behalf of consumers to automatically balance cost, comfort and sustainability.

AI’s transformative potential may still be unfolding, but its first benefits are already here. The task now is clear: accelerate digitalisation in a sector that remains, in many ways, analogue.

But do we have enough electricity?

The answer to this question is less contentious than critics think. Eurelectric’s Grids for Speed study shows that increasing demand does not automatically mean we need vast amounts of new generation. Said simply: we have enough electricity. But to make sure it’s always available, we need to invest in three things: flexibility, capacity and infrastructure.

Flexibility means enabling the system to adjust generation and consumption in response to signals from the grid or the market; crucial for managing peaks and troughs in supply and demand. Meanwhile capacity mechanisms ensure enough reliable resources are available in case flexibility does not suffice, while infrastructure – including overall capacity and digital overviews of the system in real-time – is the backbone that enable the twin transition to run on its own two legs.

Fast lanes and safety nets

While long-term investment in flexibility, capacity, and infrastructure is crucial, these things take time. Meanwhile, there are immediate steps Europe can take to accelerate digitalisation and strengthen its energy system. Five “quick wins” stand out:

1. Implement what’s been agreed: Translate AI, data and cyber laws at national level to accelerate digital innovation across the EU
2. Smarten our infrastructure: Expedite the roll-out of smart meters to enable digitalised services for better system management and customer offers
3. Align taxation with digital goals: Keep electricity taxes stable and attractive for digital investment
4. Support a single digital market: Remove barriers across the EU to enable economies of scale in new digital projects
5. Digitalise permitting: Use one-stop online platforms to streamline administrative procedures and accelerate energy and digital projects for the transition

Together, these measures can speed up digital innovation and ensure Europe’s energy system is ready to power its digital ambitions. But embracing digital and AI in energy must also come with strong safeguards. Unabetted innovation could expose the system to new vulnerabilities – from data misuse to cyberattacks, from opaque decision-making to a loss of human oversight. Europe and society cannot afford that these risks are overlooked. To make sure digitalisation and eventually AI becomes a trusted ally in the clean transition, four principles are key:

1. Protect and anonymise data: Personal information must be shielded via anonymisation and non-traceability to afford people their rightful privacy
2. Guarantee secure access:  Systems must remain safe and controlled, avoiding interdependencies that take away the ability to disconnect IT from OT in necessary situations
3. Keep a human in the loop: AI systems must not run unchecked; human oversight is essential to ensure intelligence models are acting in our best interest
4. Collaborate on emergency response: Early warning systems for cyber threats are vital to resilience and effective response

Looking ahead

From smarter forecasts to self-healing grids, from digitalised permitting to secure data flows, digitalisation and AI promise to be a game-changer for Europe’s electricity system. But it is no silver bullet. It must be paired with robust infrastructure, sound regulation and robust safeguards.

The Informal meeting of Energy Ministers in Copenhagen was a first step in putting digitalisation and AI at the top of the EU energy agenda. With Europe is planning to triple its data centre capacity and invest €20 billion in AI facilities over the next 5-7 years, the question is no longer if the electricity sector must adapt – but how quickly it can.

This blog post was originally published as part of Eurelectric’s LinkedIn Friday Features. Subscribe here to stay updated.

Disclaimer: This article is for communication purposes only and may not reflect Eurelectric positions. Any positions taken in this article shall not be attributable to Eurelectric’s official positioning. Official Eurelectric positions are reflected only in position papers published here.