HVDC Transmission for Residential Energy Patent Landscape
HVDC Transmission for Residential Energy Patent Landscape in 2026
The HVDC-for-residential-energy patent space is highly concentrated, with Ford Global Technologies alone accounting for a dominant share of a still-small but rapidly growing corpus. The field expanded strongly on a multi-year basis from a near-zero base, driven largely by vehicle-to-home and bidirectional EV-charging architectures, though annual volume has eased from its 2022 peak.
Ford leads a tightly concentrated, emerging field
Ford Global Technologies holds the top position in this landscape, followed at a significant distance by Our Next Energy Inc and independent inventor Cometa Alfonso O. The top five filers together account for 93% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total, signalling extreme concentration in a nascent domain.
The gap between the first-ranked applicant and the rest of the field is pronounced: Ford’s count is three times that of the second-ranked filer. Only seven applicants appear in the ranked corpus at all, underscoring that this is still a pre-competitive or early-competitive space where a single automotive OEM has established a structural lead.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford Global Technologies LLC | 15 | |
| 2 | Our Next Energy Inc | 5 | |
| 3 | Cometa Alfonso O | 3 | |
| 4 | Ideal Power Inc | 2 | |
| 5 | Hitachi Energy Ltd | 2 | |
| 6 | Toyota Motor Corporation | 1 | |
| 7 | Toyota Research Institute Inc | 1 |
Ford’s dominance, oriented around power-supply and grid-integration systems alongside EV-propulsion classes, suggests the company is positioning vehicle-to-home (V2H) energy transfer as a core product differentiator. Challengers such as Our Next Energy and Hitachi Energy are entering as new filers, so the competitive map may shift as publication lag clears.
Patent families filed in the most recent 18–24 months are likely under-represented due to standard publication lag; the apparent slowdown in 2024–2026 should not be read as a real decline in activity. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
A 2022 filing surge anchors multi-year growth; grid and EV classes co-dominate
Two structural observations define this landscape: annual filings spiked sharply in 2022 and have eased since, yet the three-year recent window remains well above the prior three-year window; and the technology mix is co-led by grid-systems and EV-propulsion classes, reflecting a V2H integration thesis.
Annual filing trend
Filings were essentially absent before 2018, accelerated into a 2022 peak, and have moderated in 2023–2025. Because patent applications typically publish 12–18 months after filing, 2024 and 2025 bars are understated and should not be read as a real retreat from 2022–2023 activity levels.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H02J (power supply and grid systems) is the dominant IPC branch, appearing across all 27 families, with B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) a near-equal second. G06Q (business and administrative data processing) ranks third, reflecting energy-management and billing logic. Power-conversion (H02M), AI-based computing (G06N), and magnetics (H01F) are present but sparse, marking potential adjacent areas.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Control of bi-directional power transfer
One or more controllers, responsive to an amount of power transferred from a traction battery of a vehicle to a utility grid during a planning period exceeding a predefined kWh amount that is greater than a kWh capacity of the traction battery, inhibit further transfer of power from the traction battery to the utility grid for a remainder of the planning… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vehicle recharge of home energy storage | 26 |
| 2 | Integrated vehicle-to-home energy management system | 18 |
| 3 | Multi-level inverters using sequenced drive of dou… | 14 |
| 4 | Integrated vehicle-to-home energy management system | 10 |
| 5 | Vehicle recharge of home energy storage | 8 |
| 6 | Energy management system | 4 |
| 7 | Vehicle recharge of home energy storage | 4 |
| 8 | Control of vehicle and home energy storage systems | 3 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the competitive structure means for R&D investment
The combination of high concentration, a clear V2H application thesis, and sparse coverage of enabling hardware classes shapes where defensible R&D positions remain open.
Growth stage — expanding on a multi-year basis, annual volume eased from 2022 peak
The field is classified as Growth: the recent three-year filing window sits well above the prior three-year window, with a three-year growth rate of 950% from a near-zero base. Annual volume has eased from its 2022 peak, and the most recent years carry publication-lag undercount. The implication is that early movers can still stake broad claims, but the window for unopposed filing is narrowing.
Growth stageSingle-firm dominance leaves the field structurally exposed to one strategy
The top five filers hold 93% of the hundred largest filers’ combined total, and Ford alone leads the ranked list. This creates asymmetric risk: the dominant player’s strategic pivots (e.g., deprioritising V2H) could reshape the field’s trajectory. For new entrants, the concentration also means differentiation through non-overlapping IPC branches — particularly H02M, H01F, and H01L — may offer a lower-friction path to freedom-to-operate.
High concentrationNo co-applicant activity detected — field is built on proprietary, siloed efforts
The collaboration evidence shows no co-filing relationships among any of the active applicants. Each filer has pursued its portfolio independently, consistent with a nascent field where IP boundaries are still being established and licensing structures have not yet formed. This absence of cross-entity collaboration may also indicate limited standardisation activity, which itself could represent a downstream risk for technology interoperability.
No co-filing detectedUS-centric filings with limited PCT and EPO extension
The United States is the primary jurisdiction, with only three PCT filings and two EPO entries among a small set of jurisdictions that also includes the Philippines, Canada, and India. The narrow geographic spread suggests most filers are protecting primarily in their home markets rather than building global portfolio breadth. For a technology targeting residential infrastructure, this leaves non-US markets substantially uncontested.
US-centricGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Ford leads on V2H grid integration; Our Next Energy challenges with battery-centric filing
Two filers stand clearly above the rest: Ford Global Technologies with a grid-and-EV-integration focus, and Our Next Energy with a parallel V2H architecture emphasis. All ranked applicants entered the field recently, reflecting the domain’s novelty.
Ford Global Technologies
Ford Global Technologies leads with 15 patent families, concentrated in H02J (power supply and grid systems) and B60L (EV propulsion), consistent with a vehicle-to-home energy transfer thesis. Momentum data shows a new-entrant trajectory, meaning this entire portfolio was built in the recent filing window — a rapid, deliberate position-build rather than a legacy accumulation.
families: 15Our Next Energy Inc
Our Next Energy Inc holds 5 patent families and mirrors Ford’s H02J and B60L focus, suggesting direct technical overlap in bidirectional charging and home-storage integration. Also entering as a new filer in the recent window, the company’s filing pattern indicates it is actively contesting the same V2H application space as Ford, albeit from a battery-hardware rather than OEM-vehicle starting point.
families: 5| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Ford Global Technologies LLC | 11 | ▲ new entrant |
| Our Next Energy Inc | 8 | ▲ new entrant |
| Hitachi Energy Ltd | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| Toyota Research Institute Inc | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served branches in power conversion, AI control, and magnetics
Several IPC branches appear in the corpus at low counts relative to the dominant H02J and B60L classes. These are observations of relative sparsity; only those with plausible technical value and a realistic entry path are flagged as warranting closer attention.
H02M · Power conversion (AC/DC etc.)
With only 5 patent records in this branch — concentrated in the work of Cometa Alfonso O and Ideal Power — DC-DC and AC-DC conversion hardware specific to residential HVDC architectures is sparsely covered. Efficient, high-voltage bidirectional converters are a necessary enabling component for any home HVDC bus; the sparse filing count relative to the grid-integration branch suggests hardware-layer IP has not been systematically pursued by the dominant filers. An entrant with converter IP could address a genuine technical gap.
Search this in Eureka →G06N · Computing based on AI models
Only 3 patent records fall under AI-based computing, despite the field’s clear data-processing dimension (G06Q ranks third overall). Predictive energy dispatch, load forecasting, and adaptive V2H control using machine-learning models are technically adjacent and increasingly deployed in grid-edge applications, yet remain largely unaddressed in this corpus. The combination of sparse filing and high commercial relevance makes this an adjacent branch worth monitoring, though it also sits in a crowded broader AI-energy space that could limit claim breadth.
Search this in Eureka →How leaders differ by technology route
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | H02J 3 · Power supply & grid systems | B60L 53 · Electric vehicle propulsion | B60L 55 · Electric vehicle propulsion | H02J 7 · Power supply & grid systems | G06Q 50 · Business, commerce & admin data processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Global Technologies LLC | Strong · 15 | Strong · 14 | Strong · 11 | Moderate · 5 | Moderate · 4 |
| Our Next Energy Inc | Strong · 9 | Strong · 7 | Strong · 7 | Strong · 5 | Strong · 5 |
| Hitachi Energy Ltd | Strong · 2 | Absent | Absent | Strong · 2 | Strong · 2 |
| Toyota Research Institute Inc | Strong · 1 | Strong · 1 | Strong · 1 | Absent | Absent |
| Cometa Alfonso O | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Ideal Power Inc | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The current corpus contains 27 patent families. This is a small corpus by patent-landscape standards, consistent with an early-stage, specialist application of HVDC technology.
Ford Global Technologies is the leading filer, holding 15 patent families — more than three times the count of the second-ranked applicant, Our Next Energy Inc, which holds 5 patent families.
The field is classified as Growth. The recent three-year filing window is substantially above the prior three-year window, with a three-year growth rate of 950% from a near-zero base. Annual volume has eased from its 2022 peak, and the most recent years are additionally understated by publication lag.
The United States is the dominant jurisdiction. A small number of filings extend to WIPO (PCT), Europe (EPO), the Philippines, Canada, and India. The geographic spread is narrow, leaving most non-US markets with limited patent coverage.
The most-cited inventions cluster around vehicle recharge of home energy storage, integrated vehicle-to-home energy management systems, and multi-level inverter architectures. These themes align with the dominant H02J and B60L IPC classification of the corpus.
The sparsest IPC branches relative to the dominant grid-systems class are H02M (power conversion hardware), G06N (AI-based control), H01F (magnetics and transformers), H01L (semiconductor devices), and B60K (vehicle propulsion drive). H02M and G06N carry the most immediate technical relevance to enabling a residential HVDC system and have the fewest existing families.
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Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
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