Microgrid Controller Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has cooled since a 2018 peak of 14. the midpoint year sits at 7 and the trend line is flat-to-declining, not accelerating, even accounting for the usual reporting lag on the most recent year.
- China and the United States dominate filing offices almost evenly. 22 China filings against 21 United States filings, with Europe a distant third at 13 — this is a two-region contest, not a single-market story.
- No tracked assignee shows filing activity in the latest year. every major name in the recent-momentum data reads zero for the most recent period, consistent with the known 18-month publication lag rather than a real pullback.
Filing growth compares 2021 (3 records) with 2024 (5) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 74 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families filed against microgrid controllers and microgrid control systems, scoped to documents that combine microgrid-specific language — microgrid controller, microgrid control, microgrid energy management — with named control architectures in the claims or title, including hierarchical control, droop control, primary-secondary control and grid-forming control. The IPC scope centres on H02J3/38, H02J3/46 and H02J13, the classification family for grid-connected power supply and distributed generation control.
The dataset spans filings from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off and contains 74 published patent families, each ranked once in the assignee table so continuation filings and multi-jurisdiction duplicates do not inflate any single applicant's count.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 74 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A 2018 peak, then a plateau
Filings ran at 9 in 2017 and climbed to a peak of 14 in 2018. By the midpoint year, 2022, volume had settled back to 7, and the years since read flat to declining rather than growing — the 2026 figure of 0 is a partial year and should be read as incomplete, not as a stop.
Concentrated in power-grid classification, with AI and controls as secondary threads
Every family in this set classifies under H02J, the power-supply-and-grid-systems subclass, confirming the search scope. Secondary classification is thin: G05B control and regulating systems appears in 5 records, G06N AI-based computing in 4, and G05F, H02H, G01R, G05D and G06F each contribute a handful more. That secondary spread — AI-based control turning up only 4 times against 74 core records — is the clearest sign of where claim language has not yet caught up with where the engineering is heading.
Shares are the percentage of the 74 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Microgrid Controller Control System with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about microgrid controller control system and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this set
Control system for microgrids for the production and distribution of electric power coming from multiple production sources of different types, and control method thereof
The filing describes a microgrid control system organised as a hierarchical structure on two levels: a first control level for power conversion systems handling electric power from intermittent, random, programmable or accumulation-type sources, and a second control level for a microgrid controller that cooperates with the first level. The architecture separates fast, local power-conversion control from a coordinating supervisory layer — the structural pattern most later hierarchical microgrid controller filings in this dataset build on or route around.Abstract excerpted from the published filing.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CN102623992A | 基于旋转坐标虚拟阻抗的孤岛微电网控制及优化方法 | 90 |
| 2 | US20190341781A1 | Control system for microgrids for the production and distribution of electric power coming from multiple prod… | 51 |
| 3 | US20200287410A1 | Microgrid control system and microgrid | 38 |
| 4 | CN109494746A | 基于改进自适应下垂控制的孤岛交直流混联微电网潮流计算方法 | 37 |
| 5 | WO2018122726A1 | Control system for microgrids for the production and distribution of electric power coming from multiple prod… | 37 |
| 6 | US20200153274A1 | Distributed energy resource management system | 36 |
| 7 | CN111987723A | 一种微电网运行控制方法 | 23 |
| 8 | US20160156190A1 | Hierarchical Control of Micro-grids | 23 |
| 9 | CN107706939A | CPS概念下的微网中考虑时滞和丢包问题的分布式控制方法 | 20 |
| 10 | CN110190599A | 一种基于有限时间一致性理论的孤岛微电网控制策略 | 19 |
Citation counts are drawn from the searched corpus only and favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — treat this as a measure of influence on the field, not of current commercial importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Reading the trend, the classification spread and the filing-office mix together points to where claim space is dense and where it is thin.
Growth has stalled since the first wave
The technology saw its heaviest filing activity in 2018, then settled into a lower, roughly flat rate through the dataset's midpoint. That pattern is typical of a control architecture that reached a first wave of core claims early and has not since attracted a comparable second wave of new entrants.
A two-region contest with Europe trailing
China and the United States are nearly tied as receiving offices, together accounting for the large majority of filings tracked. Europe, India, Australia and PCT filings trail well behind, which narrows the practical freedom-to-operate question to those two jurisdictions for most applicants.
AI-based control is present but not yet dominant in claims
Only 4 of the 74 records classify under G06N, computing based on AI models, despite hierarchical and droop control architectures being natural candidates for learned or adaptive tuning. Claim language in this space still describes control logic in conventional terms far more often than it describes learned models.
Collaboration is rare and localized
Only three co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest of them link a single cluster of Chinese research institutions and a university. Most filers in this space file alone, which limits how much can be inferred from co-filing networks about industry-wide alliances.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to microgrid controller control system, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the claim space is still open
The assignee list mixes established grid-equipment manufacturers, a university cluster, and a long tail of single-filing entrants. Recent-year momentum reads zero across the board for every tracked name, which — given the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication — is expected rather than a genuine slowdown signal for any one company.
Established manufacturers hold the early architecture claims
Names like Siemens AG (Siemens), Hitachi, Ltd. (Hitachi) and Electro Power Systems Manufacturing S.r.l. (Electro Power Systems) sit among the higher-cited and structurally foundational filings, including the hierarchical two-level architecture in the representative record. Their claims tend to cover the core supervisory-layer pattern rather than any single algorithm variant.
A tight regional collaboration network
Guangdong Institute of Intelligent Robotics, Guangdong HUST Industrial Technology Research Institute and Huazhong University of Science and Technology co-file with each other repeatedly, forming the densest collaboration cluster in the dataset even though the absolute number of shared filings is small.
Most applicants file once and do not return
Beyond the small set of repeat filers and the research cluster, the bulk of the 74 families trace to organisations that appear once in this dataset. That points to a field still absorbing entrants from adjacent disciplines — power electronics, industrial automation, university labs — rather than one dominated by a handful of specialist firms.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Beijing Tianchen Tongchuang Electric Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Siemens AG | 0 | — |
| Honeywell International Inc. | 0 | — |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Electro Power Systems Manufacturing S.r.l. | 0 | — |
| Yanshan University | 0 | — |
| Huawei Digital Power Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Korea University Research and Business Foundation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing and citation patterns here raise questions that a static landscape report cannot fully answer. Eureka can carry the analysis further against the live patent corpus.
Check freedom-to-operate against the hierarchical control cluster
The representative filing's two-level architecture and its close relatives sit near the top of the citation table. Running a claim-chart comparison against your own control-layer design narrows down whether you are building on open ground or inside an occupied claim.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaTrack the AI-control subclass as it grows
G06N classification is thin today at 4 of 74 records, but adaptive and learned control tuning is a natural next wave for droop and hierarchical architectures. Setting an alert on new filings in that intersection catches the next entrant before the citation data does.
Set a monitoring alert in EurekaMap the co-filing network beyond this dataset
Only three co-assignee pairs appear here, concentrated in one regional cluster. Expanding the search to adjacent IPC classes may reveal whether that collaboration pattern extends further or is genuinely isolated.
Explore assignee networks in EurekaCommon questions about microgrid controller patents
This landscape identifies 74 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine microgrid-specific control language with named architectures such as hierarchical, droop, primary-secondary or grid-forming control, classified under IPC H02J3/38, H02J3/46 or H02J13. That figure counts distinct families rather than raw published documents, which avoids double-counting continuations and multi-jurisdiction filings of the same invention. It is a scoped figure tied to this specific search definition, not a count of every patent that touches microgrids in any way.
The dataset includes established grid-equipment manufacturers such as Siemens, Hitachi and Electro Power Systems alongside a cluster of Chinese universities and research institutes that co-file repeatedly with one another. No single assignee dominates the full 74-family set; filing is spread across a moderate number of repeat filers plus a long tail of organisations that appear only once. Recent-year momentum data shows every tracked major assignee at zero for the latest period, which reflects normal publication lag rather than an actual halt in R&D.
Filing volume rose to 14 in 2018, the highest point in this dataset, then fell back toward a midpoint of 7 by 2022 and has stayed flat or lower since. That pattern typically means the core architectural claims — hierarchical structuring, basic droop and primary-secondary control logic — were staked out early, and subsequent filers have had less unclaimed ground to work with. It does not mean R&D activity itself has slowed; it means the easiest claim space filled up first. Readers should also treat the most recent one to two years of any filing count as understated, since publication typically lags filing by around 18 months.
China and the United States are almost tied as receiving offices in this dataset, at 22 and 21 records respectively, together accounting for most of the activity tracked. Europe follows at 13, with India, Australia and PCT filings well behind. For most applicants working in this space, freedom-to-operate and competitive-filing analysis should prioritise China and the United States first, since that is where the bulk of enforceable rights and pending applications concentrate.
Yes, based on the IPC composition: only 4 of the 74 core records classify under G06N, the AI-based computing subclass, despite adaptive and learned tuning being a natural extension of droop and hierarchical control logic. Sub-areas such as AI-tuned droop control, grid-forming inverter black-start coordination, and protective relaying tailored to hierarchical control layers show thin coverage relative to the density of core architecture claims. That thinness reflects claim space that has not been heavily staked out yet, not necessarily technical difficulty — it is worth checking current filings closely before assuming the ground is truly open.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
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.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.