Evaluate the digitalisation and virtualisation of your control and protection, with the rigour it demands.
VOLTIGRID helps transmission and distribution system operators assess what this technology brings, where its current limits are, and what it changes for an organisation built on the historical separation of IT and OT. 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 competence internally.
Proof by demonstration
POCs and virtual test benches that turn open questions and hearsay into measured, documented answers before any field commitment.
Organisation & adoption
Support for teams whose structure was built on the IT/OT separation, as the technology crosses that boundary and reshapes roles and responsibilities.
Digitalisation lands on an organisation built to keep IT and OT apart
When protection, automation and control go digital and virtual, the impact is not confined to one department. Questions open up across the whole organisation, and most of them have no natural owner.
Fifteen functions, one open question each: the impact map of digitalisation on a TSO organisation, drawn from the inside. It is the starting grid of an assessment.
Where the questions land in a TSO organisation
Every question mark on this map is real, and none of them has a natural owner: the organisation was built on the separation of IT and OT, and the technology crosses it. Mapping these questions against your own organisation is where an assessment starts.
From open question to documented answer
Typical engagements. Each one is scoped in writing, with deliverables and a defined end state, before any work starts.
The SEAPATH test bench, closed loop
1 A fault is injected in the simulated network. 2 Measurements stream to the protection as Sampled Values. 3 The virtualised protection decides, in real time, on SEAPATH. 4 The trip command returns as a GOOSE message. 5 The breaker opens in the simulation. Behaviour and timing are recorded end to end: the loop is closed, and the evidence is on the table.
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 that a virtualised protection preserves timing and behaviour before qualification.
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 internal competence and testing vendor packages against a neutral reference.
Assessment & roadmap
An independent evaluation of where a digitalisation or virtualisation programme actually stands: technology, competences, organisation. The outcome is a written diagnosis and a trajectory the programme owner can defend internally.
Typical use: a programme that has been investigating for years without converging toward a decision.
POC demonstrator
A targeted proof of concept combining virtualised protection, SEAPATH and network simulation, built to answer the specific questions blocking a decision. Scoped narrowly, delivered with the evidence documented.
Example: a live network model, fed from the field
Live substation and SCADA data arrive over IEC 61850 and IEC 104, land in a database, and refresh a network model in a notebook every few minutes. One example of a narrowly scoped POC: a working object, not a slide.
Typical use: settling a disputed technical claim with a working demonstration instead of another study.
What VOLTIGRID does not do
No delivery
VOLTIGRID does not develop or deliver the final solution. Delivery remains with your integrator; the role here is to evaluate, demonstrate and challenge.
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. This 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 and defence in depth. Where proof is out of reach, hands-on testing is what bounds the risk. This is the discipline the engagements are built on.
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 in Europe and beyond 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 remote virtual lab In development · available soon
The lab runs on VOLTIGRID's side: nothing to install, no perimeter to open, offered by subscription. Teams work hands-on against a neutral reference, and every campaign leaves written evidence behind. Currently in development; early interest is welcome and shapes the priorities.