Evaluate digital substation and virtualised protection, automation and control before you commit.
VOLTIGRID helps organisations working on critical power-system infrastructure clarify their next commitment: strategic vision, IT/OT operating model and evidence-based validation. Independent, hands-on, grounded in systems running in production.
Expertise & arbitration
Neutral evaluation of architectures, vendor claims and integrator proposals at the IT/OT boundary, where few organisations hold the full competence internally.
Proof by demonstration
POCs and virtual test benches that turn open questions and hearsay into measured, documented answers before any field or programme commitment.
Organisation & adoption
Support for teams whose structure was built on the IT/OT separation, as the technology crosses that boundary and reshapes responsibilities.
For critical power-system infrastructure players, not only grid operators
The same questions appear wherever protection, automation, control, telecoms, industrial IT and cybersecurity have to converge around a digital or virtualised electrical infrastructure.
Transmission & distribution operators
Clarify roadmap, qualification strategy, IT/OT operating model and build-to-run implications.
Laboratories & test centres
Structure neutral reference environments, VHIL campaigns, capture/replay methods and repeatable validation evidence.
Vendors & integrators
Challenge architectures, prepare demonstrations, test claims and align solutions with operator-grade constraints.
Data-centre builders & operators
Assess digital protection, automation, redundancy, observability and validation for critical electrical supply infrastructure.
Industrial infrastructure teams
Evaluate where virtualisation and digital PAC make sense when availability, maintainability and cyber rules are non-negotiable.
R&D and innovation programmes
Move from concept and slides to working objects, measurable behaviour and a decision path.
Digitalisation lands between electrical engineering, industrial IT and operations
When protection, automation and control go digital and virtual, the impact is not confined to one team. Questions open up across electrical engineering, automation, telecoms, cybersecurity, IT, operations and validation — and many of them have no natural owner.
Plan & decide
- StrategyWhat should be virtualised, and why now?
- Business caseWhere does value sit: CAPEX, OPEX, risk or speed?
- ProcurementWhich tests and open interfaces must be required before award?
Design & build
- EngineeringIs the reference design ready for software-defined PAC?
- ProtectionWho proves timing and selectivity for a virtualised chain?
- TelecomsWho sizes process bus, redundancy and time synchronisation?
Systems & data
- Industrial ITWho owns the IT/OT platform and lifecycle?
- CybersecurityWhat does approving a hypervisor, VM or remote lab mean?
- DataWhich operational use cases consume the new observability?
Operate & maintain
- OperationsHow is non-regression proven before commissioning?
- MaintenanceHow are versions, patches and rollback handled in the field?
- SkillsHow does the organisation avoid a two-expert bottleneck?
From open question to documented answer
Typical engagements for teams that need evidence before committing: operators, laboratories, vendors, integrators, data-centre builders and industrial critical-infrastructure programmes.
Virtual test bench (VHIL)
Real protection functions exercised against dynamic, real-time network scenarios: faults, topology changes, degraded modes. The behaviour of a virtualised protection chain is observed and measured, not assumed.
Typical use: validating timing, behaviour and non-regression before qualification or deployment.
Remote virtual lab In development · available soon
A ready-to-use, SEAPATH-based environment available by subscription. Teams build familiarity with virtualised control and protection, run qualification campaigns and non-regression tests, without opening their own IT/OT perimeter.
Typical use: building competence, testing vendor packages or benchmarking architectures against a neutral reference.
Assessment & roadmap
An independent evaluation of where a digitalisation or virtualisation programme actually stands: technology, competences, organisation and decision gates.
Typical use: a programme that has investigated for years without converging toward a defensible commitment.
POC demonstrator
A targeted proof of concept combining virtualised protection, SEAPATH, IEC 61850 data and network simulation, built to answer the specific questions blocking a decision.
Typical use: settling a disputed technical claim with a working demonstration instead of another study.
Evidence before commitment
VOLTIGRID does not replace your integrator, vendor or internal decision owner. The role is to evaluate, demonstrate and challenge before the next commitment is made.
No delivery ownership
Delivery remains with your vendor, integrator or internal team. VOLTIGRID clarifies what must be proven before delivery scales.
No decision ownership
The engagements instruct a decision: they make it decidable. The GO itself, and the deployment that follows, remain yours.
No vendor ties
No commercial affiliation with any vendor or integrator. Independence is the basis of the neutrality the evaluations rely on.
Protection is not ordinary IT. Its safety cannot be formally proven; it is constructed through iso-risk architectures, defence in depth and disciplined validation. Where proof is out of reach, hands-on testing is what bounds the risk.
Built by someone who has done it
VOLTIGRID is an independent, single-expert practice. The career behind it covers the full arc of the technology: system operation as a dispatcher, protection engineering, European studies on the impact of renewables on protection schemes, then the digitalisation and virtualisation of control and protection at RTE, the French transmission system operator.
Its founder co-initiated SEAPATH, the LF Energy open source real-time virtualisation platform on which RTE's in-service substation control systems now run, and launched the virtualisation work within R#SPACE, RTE's 100% digital, multi-vendor protection, automation and control programme.
Years spent alongside operators, engineering teams and industrial digital-substation programmes showed the same pattern everywhere: the technology is maturing faster than the competence and the organisation needed to evaluate it. VOLTIGRID exists to close that gap, from the outside, as a neutral party.
Track record
- Co-initiator of SEAPATH (LF Energy)
- Virtualisation lead within R#SPACE at RTE
- Real-time Linux and software PLCs introduced into substation control
- Protection engineering and renewables impact studies
- Digital leadership and adoption programmes with operators worldwide
Discuss how this applies to your programme
Whether your programme is at the exploration stage or has been investigating for some time, a short exchange is usually enough to see whether an engagement makes sense. No obligation follows from asking.
Direct email: contact@voltigrid.com
The VHIL test bench, closed loop
Closed-loop VHIL: a simulated fault drives sampled values to virtualised protection; the trip returns as GOOSE and the behaviour is measured end to end.
Example: a live network model, fed from the field
Example POC: field data over IEC 61850 and IEC 104 feeds a live database and refreshes a network model in a notebook.