Virtual Power Plant Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
A data-backed look at virtual power plant and smart grid patent filings: who holds the key aggregation and grid-services claims, where filing has concentrated, and which sub-areas remain under-claimed as of 2026.
Filing growth = 2021 (3 records) → 2024 (5); 2024 is the last year we treat as complete.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families at the intersection of virtual power plant (VPP) architecture, distributed energy resource (DER) aggregation, and grid services delivery — filings that combine smart grid integration or distribution automation language with IPC coverage in power supply, grid switching and grid-related business logic. It captures the technical layer that turns a collection of local generation, storage and EV assets into a single dispatchable resource for the grid operator.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend line will look thinner than actual filing activity once those applications clear examination and publish.
Filing trend and technology composition
Twenty-one published families sit inside this search, concentrated around a small set of grid-services and aggregation-platform claims rather than spread evenly across the space.
A flat-to-declining filing curve since the 2023 peak
Annual filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 7 in 2023, with 2022 sitting at the midpoint value of 4. The absence of a clear upward climb into 2024-2026 is partly a publication-lag artefact, but the plateau at the peak year suggests the core aggregation-platform claim space was staked out early rather than being an emerging one.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in. Growth rates on this page therefore end at 2024; running them to the last bar would understate the field.
Power systems dominate; EV and business-logic overlays follow
H02J (power supply and grid systems) appears in nearly every record, confirming this is fundamentally a grid-hardware and control-signal domain. B60L (EV propulsion) shows up in close to half the set, reflecting EVs' growing role as a dispatchable DER asset, while G06Q (commerce and admin data processing) appears in about a third — evidence that settlement, billing and market-participation logic is claimed alongside the hardware rather than left to software-only filers. G05B, G06F and G06N appear only marginally, which is where the control-software and AI-driven dispatch layers remain thin.
Shares are the percentage of the 21 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Virtual Power Plant Smart Grid with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about virtual power plant smart grid and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this corpus
US20250330024A1 — Intelligent local energy management system at local mixed power generating sites for providing grid services
Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to a local energy management system (LEMS) at local mixed power generating sites for providing grid services and grid service applications. The LEMS generally serves as a local power control agent for facilitating energy management at the local site level by controlling and leveraging a plurality of local assets deployed at the local site, and combining a plurality of generated power from each site which acts as its own virtual power plant for delivering grid services to the grid. In addition, the LEMS has the ability to effectively handle and fulfill energy and electrical objectives of the grid services, including regulation or demand response.Filed by Nuvve Corporation, published 2025-10-23 — part of the same family lineage as the two most-cited records in this set.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US11695274B1 | Aggregation platform for intelligent local energy management system | 10 |
| 2 | US11747781B1 | Intelligent local energy management system at local mixed power generating sites for providing grid services | 5 |
| 3 | WO2022063908A1 | Prosumers multiservice operation management system, for distributed storage networks | 5 |
| 4 | EP3975369A1 | Prosumers multiservice operation management system, for distributed storage networks | 5 |
| 5 | US20230297047A1 | Intelligent local energy management system at local mixed power generating sites for providing grid services | 4 |
| 6 | US20240055863A1 | Prosumers multiservice operation management system, for distributed storage networks | 4 |
| 7 | TW202339388A | Mothod and system of intelligent energy management at local site using local energy management system | 1 |
| 8 | WO2023183733A1 | Intelligent local energy management system at local mixed power generating sites for providing grid services | 1 |
| 9 | CN115411742A | 一种用于区域电网电压优化的虚拟电厂控制方法及系统 | 1 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older, earlier-published records; treat this as a signal of influence on subsequent filers, not a ranking 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. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (9 of 9 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the filing trend, technology mix and citation concentration are read together.
The claim rush already happened
Filing climbed to a peak of 7 families in 2023 from zero as recently as 2017, then held near the 2022 midpoint of 4 rather than continuing to climb. For a filer entering now, the foundational aggregation-platform and grid-service claims are likely already staked; differentiation has to come from a specific asset class, market mechanism or control method rather than the general VPP concept.
This is a grid-hardware field with a software overlay
Almost every record in the set carries an H02J power-systems classification, with B60L (EV propulsion) and G06Q (commerce/admin logic) as the two consistent secondary layers. AI-based dispatch (G06N) and general digital processing (G06F) each appear only once, meaning algorithmic dispatch and forecasting methods are claimed far less densely than the hardware and market layers around them.
Influence sits with one family lineage
The most-cited record, US11695274B1, sits well above the rest of the set at 10 citations, with a cluster of related filings from the same applicant lineage — including the EP/WO prosumer-management pair — following behind. New entrants should expect examiners to cite this lineage as baseline art for aggregation-platform and multiservice-operation claims.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to virtual power plant smart grid, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with an early claim rush already behind it and several adjacent branches still open. The next steps depend on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing or new filing strategy.
Map freedom-to-operate against the top-cited lineage
Run a claim-by-claim comparison against the US11695274B1 family and its EP/WO counterparts before finalising any aggregation-platform or multiservice-operation claim language.
Explore claim charts in EurekaTrack the under-claimed control-software layer
G05B, G06F and G06N appear in only a handful of records combined — worth monitoring as dispatch algorithms and AI forecasting mature into filed claims.
Set up a monitoring alert in EurekaWatch the Chinese regional co-filing cluster
The three-way link between Lvhua Energy (Fujian) Co., Ltd., Gewu Technology Co., Ltd. and Fulong Photovoltaic (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. may signal a broader regional consortium approach to DER aggregation worth tracking as it expands.
Follow assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions on VPP and smart grid patents
In this dataset, a virtual power plant patent is a filing that combines distributed energy resource aggregation or grid services language with an IPC classification in power supply and grid systems, grid switching, or grid-related business-process data handling. That means the claims typically cover either the technical mechanism for combining and dispatching distributed assets as one resource, or the market and settlement logic layered on top of it. Pure software claims without a grid-services tie-in, or pure hardware claims without an aggregation element, generally fall outside this specific search.
Citation concentration in this corpus sits with one applicant lineage: US11695274B1, describing an aggregation platform for intelligent local energy management, leads with 10 citations, and a cluster of related filings from the same family — including a matched EP/WO pair on prosumer multiservice operation management — follow closely behind. That said, citation counts favour earlier-published records, so this reflects influence on subsequent filers rather than current commercial dominance. A freedom-to-operate review should treat this lineage as baseline prior art to design around.
Not clearly, based on this dataset. Filing rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 7 families in 2023, but 2022 already sat at a midpoint of 4, and there is no sustained upward climb into the most recent years. Some of that flattening is a publication-lag effect, since filings from the last 18 months or so have not all published yet, but the plateau at the peak year suggests the foundational claim space filled quickly rather than continuing to expand.
The United States leads the receiving offices tracked here with 7 filings, followed by China with 4, and then Europe, India and the WIPO PCT route with smaller counts each, plus a single Brazilian filing. This spread indicates that no applicant has yet consolidated a single global filing strategy across all major grid markets, which leaves openings for filers who want first-mover claim coverage in offices like Brazil or expanded EPO protection.
The technology composition points to control-software and AI-driven dispatch as the thinnest layers: G05B (control and regulating systems), G06F (digital data processing) and G06N (AI-based computing) each appear in only one or two records out of the full set, compared to near-universal coverage in H02J power systems. Cross-border market settlement and EV-fleet bidirectional grid services are also lightly represented relative to the aggregation-platform core, making them reasonable targets for a first-mover claim strategy.
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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.