When a company that already sells the hardware files on the software that runs it, that is intent worth reading. US20220302703A1, published by Schneider Electric Industries on September 22, 2022, describes microgrid power management — and Schneider is exactly the kind of vendor whose breakers and gear are already in these microgrids.
The CPC tags lay out the scope: H02J 3/004 (arrangements for adjusting electric power in a network), H02J 3/381 (PV integration), H02J 3/32 (battery use in networks), and H02J 2300/40 (energy management with optimization criteria). This is generation-plus-storage-plus-load coordination — the full orchestration stack of a microgrid.
Mapping to deployment: a microgrid's value is realized by the layer that decides, second by second, where power comes from and goes to. For a hardware incumbent, owning IP on that decision layer is how you keep the orchestration value from migrating to a software-only competitor. The filing is a fence around the brain of the box, by the company that sells the body.
The patent-versus-product discipline matters here: this is a published application, not a granted patent, and it claims a method, not a deployed product. What ships under Schneider's microgrid offerings is governed by their actual implementation; the filing tells us where they are trying to fence, not what they have.
From patent to grid, the throughline is consolidation. The 2020 microgrid IP was startups and turbine makers; by 2022 the major electrical-equipment vendors (Schneider here, Hitachi Energy in a parallel grant) are filing on microgrid orchestration. The IP is following the money toward behind-the-meter, and the incumbents are moving to own the control layer before it slips away.