Smart Grid Management Patent Landscape 2026
Smart Grid Management Patent Landscape in 2026
Smart grid management is in active growth, with the corpus expanding by 108% over the recent window and annual filings trending upward. State Grid Corporation of China leads a moderately concentrated field dominated by Chinese institutional filers, alongside a smaller cluster of European and North American challengers.
State Grid Corporation of China leads a moderately concentrated field
China holds the top position among ranked applicants, followed by RESTORE and Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV. The top five filers account for 23% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers, signaling moderate rather than extreme concentration.
There is a clear two-tier structure. The first tier — China, RESTORE, and Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV — holds meaningful separation from the second tier, which includes South. China University of Technology, NIO Tech Anhui, Kyocera Corporation, and GridBridge Inc. Below rank ten, filings drop to single-digit patent family counts, indicating a long tail of smaller contributors.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | State Grid Corporation of China | 30 | |
| 2 | RESTORE | 26 | |
| 3 | Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV | 15 | |
| 4 | South China University of Technology | 13 | |
| 5 | NIO Tech Anhui Co., Ltd. | 12 | |
| 6 | Kyocera Corporation | 11 | |
| 7 | GridBridge Inc | 11 | |
| 8 | China Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd. | 9 | |
| 9 | Torus Inc. | 8 | |
| 10 | Electric Power Research Institute of China Southern Power Grid | 8 |
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | State Grid Shanghai Municipal Electric Power Co. | 7 | |
| 12 | Indra Ital S.p.A. | 7 | |
| 13 | Shanghai Jiao Tong University | 6 | |
| 14 | Dalian Maritime University | 6 | |
| 15 | SR University | 6 | |
| 16 | Shandong University | 6 | |
| 17 | Aartech Solonics UK Ltd. | 6 | |
| 18 | CHINA PETROLEUM ENG & CONSTR | 5 | |
| 19 | Zhejiang University | 5 | |
| 20 | State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. Research Institute | 5 |
The leaders’ positions reflect distinct institutional strategies: China and its subsidiary entities collectively dominate the Chinese filing landscape, while RESTORE and Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV represent European utility-side commercial activity. This bifurcation suggests that any entrant must navigate different competitive dynamics in the Chinese and Western markets.
Filings from 2025 and 2026 are understated due to standard patent publication lag and should not be taken as indicators of slowing activity. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Annual filings are climbing and power-systems IP dominates the technology mix
The two charts below show the pace at which new patent families are entering the corpus and the relative weight of each technology branch across the full dataset.
Annual filing trend
Filings rose from a trough around 2020 and accelerated sharply from 2022 onward, reaching the highest observed annual value in 2025. The 2026 bar reflects only early-published filings and substantially understates full-year activity; treat both 2025 and 2026 figures as floors, not ceilings.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
H02J (Power Supply and Grid Systems) is the dominant branch by a wide margin, reflecting the core grid-integration focus of the field. G06Q (Business, Commerce and Admin Data Processing) is the second-ranked branch, capturing demand-side management and utility analytics work. G06N (AI Models) ranks third, signaling growing but still secondary AI integration. Branches such as B60L (Electric Vehicle Propulsion), G05B (Control and Regulating Systems), and H04L (Digital Information Transmission) each hold modest shares, pointing to adjacent convergence 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.
Micro-grid energy management system
Micro-grid energy management system includes distributed power generation and storage devices each configured to generate and store power in a distributed manner, monitor its own status, and transmit data on the monitored status through a different interface, a gateway device connected selectively with the distributed power generation and storage devices… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Methods and Systems for Post-Disaster Resilient Re… | 104 |
| 2 | Communications between vehicle and charging system | 75 |
| 3 | Fast electric vehicle charging and distributed gri… | 69 |
| 4 | Micro-Grid Energy Management System | 67 |
| 5 | Highly flexible, electrical distribution grid edge… | 66 |
| 6 | Battery energy storage control systems and methods | 64 |
| 7 | 一种光伏微电网能量管理与优化调度系统 | 58 |
| 8 | 三维协调的电网能量管理系统及对电网的评估及控制方法 | 58 |
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 decisions
Four structural observations — maturity, concentration, collaboration, and geography — frame the strategic context for teams deciding where to allocate smart grid IP resources.
Growth stage with sustained upward trajectory
The lifecycle evidence classifies this field as Growth, with annual filings still rising and the recent-window growth rate at 108%. The field has not yet reached a saturation plateau, meaning differentiated IP positions remain achievable. Teams entering now face active competition but can still establish claims in less-crowded sub-branches before consolidation sets in.
Lifecycle: GrowthModerate concentration with a pronounced China-led first tier
The top five filers hold 23% of the combined output of the hundred largest filers — a moderate level that leaves room for challengers. However, the first tier is heavily skewed toward Chinese state-owned and state-affiliated entities. Western entrants RESTORE and Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV are the primary counterweights, suggesting that non-Chinese players can compete but must do so with focused, differentiated portfolios rather than volume strategies.
Concentration: ModerateRESTORE–Centrica and State Grid–CEPRI are the most active co-filing pairs
The strongest co-filing relationship is between RESTORE and Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV (10 joint families), consistent with their shared European demand-flexibility focus. Indra Ital SPA and ACEA S.p.A. co-filed 9 families, pointing to Italian grid-operator engagement. State Grid Corporation of China co-filed with China Electric Power Research Institute (6 families), State Grid Beijing Electric Power (4 families), and several provincial grid research institutes (2 families each), reflecting a hub-and-spoke model centered on its national research arm and Tsinghua University.
Collaboration: ActiveChina dominates filings; India and the US are the next-largest venues
China is the primary filing jurisdiction, followed at a distance by India and the United States. Europe (EPO) and WIPO (PCT) together add meaningful international coverage. Germany, New Zealand, and Australia represent secondary national-phase entries. The concentration in China reflects both the dominance of Chinese applicants and the scale of domestic grid-modernization programs. Teams targeting Western markets should note that US and EPO coverage is present but far thinner than the Chinese base.
Geography: China-ledGo 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.
| Applicant | Collaborator | Co-filings |
|---|---|---|
| RESTORE | Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV | 10 |
| Indra Ital S.p.A. | ACEA S.p.A. | 9 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | China Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd. | 6 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | State Grid Beijing Electric Power Co. | 4 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | XJ Group Corporation | 2 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | Xuchang XJ Software Technologies Ltd. | 2 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | Tsinghua University | 2 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | State Grid Jiangxi Electric Power Science Research Institute | 2 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. Electric Power Science Research Institute | 2 |
| State Grid Corporation of China | State Grid Shandong Electric Power Company Economic and Technical Research Institute | 2 |
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
State Grid Corporation of China and RESTORE lead with contrasting technology emphases
The top two filers reflect fundamentally different strategic postures: one is a state-utility behemoth filing across the full grid stack, the other is a European demand-flexibility specialist with deep control-systems coverage.
State Grid Corporation of China
State Grid Corporation of China holds 30 patent families and concentrates its portfolio heavily in H02J 3 (power supply and grid systems), with secondary positions in H02J 13 and G06Q 50 (utility business data processing). Its momentum data show a ‘new entrant’ signal in the most recent window, which given its established total likely reflects a newly tracked subsidiary entity rather than a genuinely new market participant. The broader State Grid ecosystem — including State Grid Shanghai, State Grid Beijing Electric Power, State Grid Jiangsu, and affiliated provincial research institutes — substantially amplifies the group’s effective footprint.
families: 30RESTORE
RESTORE holds 26 patent families and is the field’s most focused control-systems player outside China, with its primary emphasis in H02J 3 and meaningful secondary positions in G05B 13 (control and regulating systems) and G05F 1 (electric/magnetic variable control). Its close co-filing relationship with Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV (10 joint families) indicates a structured European demand-response alliance. Momentum data classify RESTORE as a new entrant in the most recent period, consistent with rapid recent filing activity from what may be a smaller prior base.
families: 26| Applicant | Recent (3 yrs) | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| State Grid Corporation of China | 4 | ▲ new entrant |
| South China University of Technology | 1 | ▲ new entrant |
| GridBridge Inc | 2 | ▲ new entrant |
Under-served adjacent branches worth monitoring
Several IPC classes appear at lower relative shares alongside the dominant H02J core. These observations are based on relative patent-record counts and should be treated as starting points for targeted prior-art searches rather than validated market opportunities.
G06N · AI Models for Grid Optimization
G06N accounts for a modest share of the technology mix despite AI being a frequently cited enabler of demand forecasting, fault detection, and real-time dispatch optimization. The branch is present but sparse relative to the H02J core, suggesting that AI-native grid management methods — machine learning for load prediction, reinforcement learning for dispatch — are underrepresented in filed claims. Teams with existing AI IP and grid domain expertise could find this a tractable entry point, particularly in jurisdictions where H02J coverage is already dense.
Search this in Eureka →B60L · Electric Vehicle Grid Integration
B60L (Electric Vehicle Propulsion) holds a lower share despite vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and managed EV charging being active deployment areas. The top-cited patent corpus includes work on EV charging communications, and NIO Tech Anhui’s presence in the top-ten applicant list confirms automotive-grid convergence interest. The branch remains sparse relative to the pure-grid core, pointing to potential space for IP covering bidirectional charging protocols, aggregated EV fleet dispatch, and grid-interactive charging standards — particularly relevant as EV penetration accelerates in China and Europe.
Search this in Eureka →How leading filers diverge across technology routes
Strength of each leader across the main technology routes.
| Player | H02J 3 · Power supply & grid systems | G06Q 50 · Business, commerce & admin data processing | H02J 13 · Power supply & grid systems | G06Q 10 · Business, commerce & admin data processing | H02J 7 · Power supply & grid systems |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RESTORE | Strong · 39 | Emerging · 5 | Absent | Emerging · 3 | Absent |
| State Grid Corporation of China | Strong · 28 | Emerging · 5 | Moderate · 7 | Emerging · 3 | Emerging · 2 |
| South China University of Technology | Strong · 13 | Strong · 7 | Absent | Strong · 7 | Absent |
| GridBridge Inc | Strong · 11 | Strong · 6 | Strong · 10 | Absent | Absent |
| Indra Ital S.p.A. | Strong · 9 | Strong · 8 | Strong · 7 | Absent | Absent |
Frequently asked questions
The corpus covers 422 patent families in scope. Filing activity has grown by 108% over the recent measurement window, consistent with a field in active growth.
State Grid Corporation of China leads with 30 patent families among the top 100 ranked filers, followed by RESTORE with 26 and Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV with 15.
Yes. The lifecycle classification is Growth, with annual filings still rising. The 2025 and 2026 data points are understated due to publication lag and should be treated as floors for those years.
H02J (Power Supply and Grid Systems) is dominant by a wide margin. G06Q (Business and Admin Data Processing) and G06N (AI Models) rank second and third respectively, followed by G06F, B60L, G05B, and H04L at lower shares.
China is the primary filing jurisdiction, followed by India and the United States. Europe (EPO) and WIPO (PCT) provide the next layers of international coverage, with Germany and Australia representing smaller national-phase destinations.
RESTORE and Centrica Business Solutions Belgium NV are the most active co-filing pair with 10 joint families. Indra Ital SPA and ACEA S.p.A. co-filed 9 families. State Grid Corporation of China co-files extensively with China Electric Power Research Institute (6 families), State Grid Beijing Electric Power (4 families), and multiple provincial grid research institutes.
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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.
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