Research update: Innovation that drives the energy transition

Tom Hoff | Sep 10, 2026

Introduction

We often attach big breakthroughs to a single, iconic name such as Thomas Edison and the light bulb, or Steve Jobs and the iPhone. But that framing hides how innovation typically occurs. Transformative advances are rarely the result of a lone inventor or a single flash of brilliance. Rather, they’re built by talented teams over time, through experimentation, iteration and countless decisions that compound. The 1969 moon landing, for example, was a coordinated achievement across many disciplines of engineers, scientists, technicians and operators, each doing essential work that made a “giant leap” possible.

That represents our philosophy at Clean Power Research®. Curiosity and optimism are two words that come to mind when we think of Clean Power Research. Curiosity relates to the Research part of our name. It represents our drive to translate great ideas into products that can be used by our customers. The obvious part of this occurs within the company’s dedicated Research team. But it is much more fundamental than this. Employees across our organization practice ingenuity (one of our four core values), not just Research Group members.

Innovation driven by curiosity within a software organization leads to the world of the possible. This creates a sense of optimism. But the Clean Power part of our name extends that optimism because it ties into our vision of a clean-powered planet.

What we mean by the energy transition

The “energy transition” is often described as shifting the global energy system from fossil fuels to renewable energy resources. In practice, it’s a system-wide transformation with many moving parts:

  • Scaling clean generation (and the supply chains behind it)
  • Expanding and modernizing transmission and distribution
  • Integrating variable energy resources with storage and flexible demand
  • Maintaining reliability and affordability as the grid evolves

It also coincides with major load growth—from transportation and building electrification, to data centers that power AI. These changes create new planning and operational challenges for utilities. Like the moon landing, it will take both major breakthroughs and many smaller advances to succeed.

Clean Power Research supports this work by delivering software that helps electric utilities, energy agencies and solar enterprises streamline workflows, automate customer engagement and make better decisions with solar irradiance data and intelligence.

Our track record and research focus

Clean Power Research has been a successful software business for more than 25 years. Today, we serve 14 of the 15 largest U.S. utilities and more than 300 solar enterprises worldwide. We hold over 85 patents and have written numerous papers across various research categories:

  • Workflow Optimization for the Integration of Renewables: We built systems to manage high volumes of renewable energy applications with greater efficiency, transparency and consistency by optimizing the workflows associated with the interconnection process.
  • Value of PV: We quantified the value of PV to help inform program designers in support of energy, economic and environmental goals.
  • Energy Valuation: We designed methods to quantify the value of distributed generation for both utilities and system owners.
  • Virtual Energy Audit: We developed methods to virtually assess the thermal performance of buildings without on-site energy audits or customer input by using a minimal amount of utility billing data.
  • Forecast PV Fleet Performance: We developed methods to forecast the power output of a solar PV fleet across a region.
  • Firm Power: We developed methods to manage the intermittency of variable resources using a Firm Power approach.

Current innovation areas

Our Research team applies AI and machine learning to help our software solve complex problems more efficiently, and deliver stronger data insights for utility, energy agency and solar enterprise customers. Recent work includes projects that help electric utilities:

  • Develop AI-assisted design reviews to streamline interconnection of distributed resources, large generation, and new loads.
  • Provide real-time insights into high volume utility and agency interconnection and other programs seeking to optimize the deployment, interconnection, integration and management of distributed energy resources.
  • Accurately predict behind-the-meter PV performance without metered production data.
  • Manage the impacts of growing distributed resources (including rooftop PV, EVs, batteries, and space conditioning equipment/heat pumps) to address saturation issues, optimize deployments and reduce grid impacts.
  • Employ a passive demand flexibility approach to manage stress on the grid.
  • Perform utility-wide virtual energy audits.

We are also innovating new solutions for solar enterprise customers who site, design, build and operate solar power plants, including initiatives that:

That same pattern of teams solving hard problems through consistent, practical innovation is exactly what the energy transition demands. It is also how Clean Power Research approaches the work ahead.

Looking ahead

The energy transition brings complex, global challenges. Meaningful progress will require innovation across the entire energy ecosystem. Clean Power Research is committed to advancing that progress by turning research into practical software solutions for utilities, energy agencies and solar enterprises.

Please contact us if you would like to learn more about our research and innovation work or explore our software services.