Apache Kafka for energy and utilities

Batch processing on a real-time grid

The grid changes faster than your systems respond

Discover why Europe's energy companies, financial services firms, and government agencies rely on Axual for mission-critical operations.

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.

Renewable generation makes this worse. Supply is less predictable, imbalance windows are shorter, and the volume of data coming off distributed assets keeps rising.

The entire Dutch grid runs on Axual

Four grid problems, one streaming layer

Real-time grid monitoring

Process meter and grid data as it arrives to detect load fluctuations in real time.

Predictive maintenance

Stream asset and sensor data continuously to detect anomalies before outages occur.

Allocation and reconciliation

Combine production and consumption data for accurate imbalance calculations.

Security and compliance

Control access, validate schemas, and audit every platform change.

Kafka Connect based source and sink connectors, managed and monitored in the same interface as topics and applications

Axual Distributor for message, schema, and offset distribution between clusters, including across on-premises and cloud

REST Proxy for systems that cannot run a Kafka client

Topic, application, and connector management in one interface, provisionable through the Axual Terraform provider

Java, Python, and .NET clients for applications that can

KSML for stream processing pipelines defined in YAML instead of Java

Multi-AZ and multi-cluster deployment, with cluster certificate expiry now visible in the UI and notified before expiry

Runs on Kafka 4 with KRaft, with a documented migration path from ZooKeeper

Controls

Authentication: mTLS, SASL SCRAM-512, and OAuth, with OAuth now supported across all data plane components including the Apicurio schema registry

Authorisation: role-based access control, ownership groups, and approval workflows on every access request

Environment separation between development, testing, and production, with separate configuration per environment

Field level data masking in Topic Browse, defined by the schema owner and extendable per topic and per environment, with a strict mode that prevents unmasking entirely

Secrets managed through HashiCorp Vault

Audit history covering creates, modifies, deletes, access requests, and approvals across platform resources, filterable by resource, actor, action, and time range

Overview graph showing every producer and consumer per topic

DORA
compliant

ISO 27001 compliant

GDPR
compliant

AICPA
SOC 2 Type II

View our ISO 27001 certification

Tennet

Transmission system operator, Netherlands and Germany 24,000+ km of high-voltage grid. ~43 million end users served. Moved from batch to real-time processing for continuous grid visibility. Data plane and control plane separated, self-service enabled with centralised security and audit.

Eneco

2M+ residential and business customers 200% faster data processing than the batch systems it replaced. 1M+ messages per day at sub-second latency. 30% energy savings in district heating operations. Multiple teams managing their own streams independently.

Enexis

Distribution system operator, 2.7M+ connections 70+ real-time streams for smart meter and grid data. 60+ applications consuming meter events. 150+ developers on a shared platform. Manual AMR data collection eliminated. Legacy systems integrated through connectors rather than custom code.

Frequently asked questions

Can Axual run fully on-premises, without cloud connectivity?

Yes. Axual deploys on Kubernetes or OpenShift on your own infrastructure. The platform is designed for firewalled environments where grid data stays inside systems you operate.

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.

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.

We already run Strimzi. Do we have to migrate?

No. Deploy Axual Governance on top of your existing Strimzi environment, or have Axual operate that environment for you.

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 it cost?

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

The Kafka platform for European energy companies