Societal impacts of AI integration in the EU electricity market: The Dutch case

The European Union (EU) aims for a just energy transition and sees artificial intelligence (AI) as a key instrument to reach it. This paper analyses the societal impact of AI integration in the Dutch electricity market, as part of the EU market. We found that the integration of AI by different actors could increase the electricity market's sustainability, reliability, and affordability, as the increase in accuracy and speed offers more flexibility and allows for further integration of (variable) renewable energy. The effects on the equity and equality and power balances in the electricity market are, however, uncertain. AI may unburden participants from certain tasks and allow for more active participants, but the increased complexity excludes participants with less resources and might harm the equality of opportunities in the electricity market. Moreover, the necessary digital infrastructure challenges the (cyber)security, privacy, the controllability of the technology, and autonomy of market actors. The EU and Dutch government could anticipate the above effects by supporting new market participants (e.g., energy communities and cooperatives) with an open access data base of AI programs, and by creating institutional clarity for system operators when it comes to their additional tasks, giving these actors time to prepare.