The ORBIT consortium investigates how organizations in the Nordic energy sector develop and use artificial intelligence (AI) in responsible and regulation-aligned ways. As energy grids in the Nordic countries become increasingly interconnected, digital, and dependent on AI tools to forecast demand, detect faults, and automate decision-making, national energy transmission system operators (TSOs) face growing pressure. While adopting AI in their operations, they must do so in responsible ways. The challenge is urgent in the Nordic region, where electricity grids are highly interconnected, and disruptions in one country may ripple across the entire system.
To address this challenge, the ORBIT consortium brings together a team of social scientists and provides a novel comparative study that examines how national TSOs in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway navigate the digital transformation in the Nordic region. By focusing on the relationship between organizations, regulation, and expertise in the energy sector, the consortium’s ambition is to develop a new direction on how we understand responsible AI use through an organizational view.
The study conducts an in-depth analysis of the four national TSOs and the Nordic Regional Coordination Centre. Through three interconnected work packages, the project investigates how regulation (e.g., the EU AI Act), organizational practices, and expertise come together in producing accountability infrastructures, understood as programs, roles, and procedures that work to align an organization’s activities with AI regulations, ethical norms, and societal expectations. First, the study maps how AI regulation is interpreted and applied in national and European energy policy. Second, the study examines how accountability infrastructures are developed within national TSOs. Third, the study zooms in on how coordination takes place across national borders and organizations.
By combining in-depth fieldwork, interviews, and a novel cross-national survey, the ORBIT consortium develops an Accountability Infrastructure Framework, which is a new way to understand how responsibility for AI outcomes is built, shared, and sustained in critical infrastructure settings. The consortium will generate significant academic insights and provide implications for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and professionals working in the Nordic energy sector.
