Energy & utilities

The Kafka platform for European energy companies

Real-time grid monitoring, smart meter data, and governed data exchange on infrastructure you control.

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24,000+ km
High-voltage grid monitored, TenneT
2.7M+
Connections served, Enexis
1M+
Messages/day at sub-second latency, Eneco
150+
Developers on one platform, Enexis
Rated with a 4.5 from more than
13 G2 reviews
Batch processing on a real-time grid

The grid changes faster than your systems respond

Smart meters, substations, and sensors emit events every second. AMR workflows, settlement runs, and asset reports still move in batches, so operators see load fluctuations, equipment faults, and imbalance positions after the fact rather than as they happen. Axual streams those events as they happen, alongside the SCADA, metering, and settlement systems you already run.

Trusted by Dutch grid operators

See the grid as it changes,
not after the fact

Real-time grid monitoring

Spot load fluctuations as they happen, not in the next report. Meter and grid data is processed the moment it arrives.

Predictive maintenance

Fix equipment before it fails, not after an outage. Asset and sensor data streams continuously, so anomalies are flagged early.

Allocation and reconciliation

Settle imbalance with accurate, up-to-date numbers. Production and consumption data is combined as it arrives instead of in end-of-day runs.

Security and compliance

Publish each meter reading once and let every system use it. Settlement, analytics, and customer apps read the same stream, with no manual AMR collection.

Controls for regulated grid data

Real-time, with every control in place

Grid data is critical infrastructure, and meter data is often personal data. Axual controls who can produce, consume, and manage every stream, and records every change automatically.

Personal data stays hidden. Field-level masking in Topic Browse, set by the schema owner, with a strict mode that prevents unmasking.
Only the right people get in. mTLS, SASL SCRAM-512, and OAuth across all data plane components, with secrets managed in HashiCorp Vault.
Access follows ownership. Role-based access, ownership groups, and approval workflows on every access request.
A complete audit trail. Every create, change, deletion, access request, and approval, filterable by resource, person, action, and time.
See who uses what. An overview graph of every producer and consumer per topic.
Test safely before going live. Separate development, testing, and production environments.
ISO 27001
certified
SOC2
Type II
NIS2
ready
View our ISO 27001 certification
NIS2

A Kafka platform that supports your NIS2 obligations

Supply chain security

An EU-owned supplier, built and supported in the Netherlands. Axual runs on your own infrastructure, so grid data never has to pass through an external service.

Business continuity

Grid visibility keeps running when part of your infrastructure doesn’t. Multi-AZ and multi-cluster deployment, with certificate expiry flagged before it can cause an outage.

Incident handling

When something goes wrong, see who changed what and when. If a system processed bad data, reset to a point in time and reprocess, without replaying everything.

Exit strategy

Open Apache Kafka at the core, so if you ever leave, you keep a standard Kafka cluster.

Built for existing energy infrastructure

Real-time grid data without replacing SCADA, AMR, or your core systems

Axual connects the OT and IT systems you already run and streams their data in real time, on-premises, in firewalled environments, in your cloud, or across all three.

Diagram showing a three-layer stack with Axual at the top including connectors like Databases, APIs, SaaS, Data lakes, and Message Queues; Kafka in the middle with components such as Kafka Connect, Kafka Streams, and Brokers; and Infra at the bottom with Deployment, Kubernetes, Cloud, Operators, and Monitoring components.
Connects to OT, including legacy systems. Connectors, a REST Proxy for systems that can’t run a Kafka client, and Java, Python, and .NET clients. Enexis integrated legacy platforms like Tibco this way, without custom code.
Moves data between on-prem and cloud. Axual Distributor syncs messages, schemas, and offsets between clusters.
Managed like the rest of your infrastructure. A Terraform provider, and Kafka 4 with KRaft, with a documented migration path from ZooKeeper.
Topic, application, and connector management in one interface, provisionable through the Axual Terraform provider
Proven across Europe

TSOs, DSOs, and utilities running Axual in production

TenneT

Transmission system operator, Netherlands and Germany
‍
‍Grid data arrived in batches. Now it’s processed in real time, giving continuous visibility across 24,000+ km of high-voltage grid serving ~43 million people, with self-service for teams and centralised security and audit.

Read the TenneT story

Eneco

2M+ residential and business customers
‍
‍Batch systems slowed everything down. Data now processes 200% faster, at 1M+ messages a day with sub-second latency, alongside 30% energy savings in district heating operations.

Read the Eneco story

Enexis

Distribution system operator, 2.7M+ connections
‍
‍Meter data was collected manually. Now 70+ real-time streams feed 60+ applications, used by 150+ developers, with legacy systems connected through connectors rather than custom code.

Read the Enexis story

See how Axual fits your grid architecture, your compliance requirements, and your migration timeline

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Frequently asked questions

How do energy companies use Apache Kafka?

Energy companies use Apache Kafka to move grid, meter, and asset data continuously instead of in scheduled batches. Typical uses are real-time grid monitoring, predictive maintenance on distributed assets, and allocation and reconciliation for imbalance settlement. Axual adds the governance layer on top of open Kafka: topic ownership, schema validation, access approvals, and an audit history of every change.

Can we connect OT systems like SCADA, sensors, and meters?

Yes, through Kafka Connect connectors, the REST Proxy for systems that cannot run a Kafka client, and the Java, Python, and .NET clients for systems that can. Enexis integrated legacy platforms including Tibco, Menix, and OSGI this way.

How do we handle personal data in smart meter streams?

Schema owners mark fields as masked, and topic owners can mask additional fields per environment. Masked fields are hidden in Topic Browse, and strict masking prevents them being unmasked at all. Note that this controls what users see when browsing messages in the platform, not what is written to the topic, so field level encryption or tokenisation at the producer remains the customer's responsibility.

Is Axual an alternative to Confluent?

Yes. Axual runs open Apache Kafka on-premises, in firewalled environments or in your own cloud account, so operational and grid data never has to pass through an external service. Many teams share one governed platform, and the Distributor synchronises data between on-premises and cloud clusters. With no proprietary core, you keep a standard Kafka cluster if you ever leave. Dutch grid operators including TenneT and Enexis use Axual.

What happens if a downstream system processes bad data?

Application owners can reset a consumer group's offsets to a chosen timestamp and reprocess from that point, without replaying everything.

How is smart meter data streamed at scale?

Smart meter data is streamed by publishing each reading once to a topic that many systems consume independently, rather than querying the source system repeatedly. Settlement, analytics, fraud detection, and customer applications all read the same stream. Enexis runs 70+ real-time streams feeding 60+ applications this way, with no manual AMR collection.

Can events move between on-premises and cloud?

Yes. Axual Distributor distributes messages, schemas, and consumer offsets between clusters, which supports on-premises grid events reaching cloud analytics.

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How much does Axual cost?

Pricing depends on deployment model, support level, and scale. Contact us for a quote.