Written by:
Abrar Rauf
The tools and systems we use in daily work are being transformed by the power of AI technology, and renewables is no exception.
The proliferation of these new AI superpowers means it’s more important than ever to have clear traceability and ownership over where your data is stored and processed.
There are real compliance obligations and consequences associated with managing all of the sensitive operational data, contracts and financial records energy operators handle on a daily basis.
No matter what region you’re based in, it’s increasingly important that you know exactly what is happening with your data, and where it goes.
For EU clients, “hosted in the EU” is the baseline – not the finish line
Hosting your data in the EU is a good start. But GDPR restricts the transfer of personal data outside the EEA unless the destination provides ‘adequate protection’, and the US is not universally considered adequate.
That means even if your database sits in Frankfurt, the moment data leaves the EEA to be processed by an AI model, you may have a problem.
In practice, our client asked us to either guarantee EU-based inference or demonstrate a robust cross-border compliance framework. If we transferred EU personal data outside the region, that would require a valid legal transfer mechanism (DPF or SCCs), a DPA, appropriate security measures, and transparency on subprocessors.
Where SCCs (Standard Contractual Clauses) are used, we would have also had to conduct a transfer risk assessment.
While our infrastructure was already hosted in the EU, inference was not strictly confined to the region. We chose to address this directly by introducing EU-based inference, reducing regulatory complexity and better aligning with enterprise procurement expectations. We are designed to operate in compliance with GDPR requirements.
EU inference is the harder problem which most other energy management tools haven't solved
Even with all of the above in place, it still wouldn’t guarantee that AI inference is happening in the EU.
AI inference is a trained machine learning model being put into action. It’s the process by which the model analyses new data and draws conclusions, when it hasn’t been provided with examples of the expected outcome.
Many providers route requests across global infrastructure, with carve-outs for model inference even when they offer EU data residency.
It's a quietly common gap, and one that's easy to miss until it becomes a problem.
Alentis is different: fully compliant, full EU inference
We work inside this regulatory environment every day. Alentis is EU-based, with offices currently in the UK and Germany.
Our team has worked within the largest utility-scale energy companies and highly regulated industries like finance and banking, where data compliance isn't optional and the consequences of getting it wrong are serious.
So when it comes to data handling, we start from a high bar: for EU clients, all Alentis data is hosted in the EU, and is fully GDPR-compliant. All AI inference is also guaranteed to run within the EU, with no exceptions.
At Alentis, we’ve built AI tooling into the platform from day one, compared to legacy platforms that bolt-on features without solving underlying issues.
From intelligent onboarding and contract search to automated work management and spares analysis. Getting the infrastructure right for that to work flawlessly for our EU clients has been essential for us from day one.
For EU-based asset managers, that means the full power of an AI-native platform - but without the compliance headaches, transfer risk assessments, or uncomfortable conversations with your DPO.
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