Choosing a Strategic Partner for Your Grid Operations Software Platform Needs

Author Sticky

Thorsten Heller

Chief Innovation Officer

Grid Software, GE Vernova

Driven by his intellectual curiosity and vision that data integration holds the key to the future, German CEO Thorsten Heller co-founded Greenbird, challenging the traditional way utilities approach the smart energy revolution since 2010.

Greenbird (now GE Vernova) developed integration technology to help energy companies manage the information flow for smart metering and smart city applications. While at Greenbird, Thorsten launched Utilihive, a powerful software platform for smart meter management ready to scale and handle big data. It enables customers to be future-ready up to 80% faster than traditional system integration models.

As Chief Innovation Officer for GridOS at GE Vernova, Thorsten brings his considerable experience in enterprise integration, big data, machine learning, AI and real-time analytics to the grid orchestration category. Thorsten lives by the motto “If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough” and he is passionate about making data fly.

Apr 01, 2025 Last Updated
3 Minute Read

The energy sector is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by increasing electricity demand, electrification, data center expansion, and industrial reshoring. These and many other challenges have combined to result in a more complex and interconnected grid—with legacy IT systems struggling to keep up with the vast amounts of data being generated from disparate sources. Harmonizing this data is critical for improving operational efficiency, enabling data-driven decision making, and controlling costs.
 
While data harmonization is certainly important on its own, utilities organizations can best position themselves for future success by investing in an overarching grid operations platform that is optimized for grid operations and orchestration, and provides core capabilities like data harmonization that utilities need to manage the future grid.

The Build vs. Buy Dilemma

When considering a grid operations platform, the ages-old question is inevitably, “Should we build or buy?” While building a software platform for grid operations in-house may seem like the best option—especially given the complexity and volume of data—builds take years to successfully complete and can cost a fortune. At the same time, no generic, off-the-shelf platform or software solution is going to account for specific utility use cases like multi-directional energy flows, DER optimization, or managing grid flexibility. That’s why, when organizations choose to invest in a grid operations platform, they must ensure they’re getting a purpose-built solution that can handle the vast amount of real-time energy data and can adapt to shifting needs.
 
The right industry-specific software platform can provide utilities with a competitive edge. It must provide real-time, secure integration across the entire grid infrastructure; contextualization to offer a solid data foundation for AI-driven solutions and analytics; and Zero Trust grid security principles built in.   
 
And the most sure-fire way to find such a solution is to acquire one through a strategic partnership.

The Power of Strategic Partnerships when choosing a grid platform

Partnering with the right strategic vendor gives a utility immediate access to a grid platform and portfolio of solutions designed specifically for grid orchestration. Little value can be gleaned from a utility building a basic, foundational platform architecture and its underpinnings from scratch – the true value comes from the unique, customer- and business-specific innovations built atop it. Considering this, leaning into a strategic partnership with a leading provider is the best approach to a grid operations platform.
 
In addition to accelerating the energy transition, acquiring a grid operations platform via a strategic partnership delivers an array of other benefits across your energy transition journey.
  • Built-in flexibility for innovations. When selecting a grid operations platform, it’s naturally important to select a platform that provides the key capabilities utilities organizations most often need. This ensures minimal time-to-value (i.e. short-term value). But utilities must also think about the longer-term benefits of the platform they choose. Specifically, the platform should have enough flexibility to accommodate additional, bespoke innovations that the utility may wish to have its in-house software engineering personnel create. Rather than continually pouring funds into a house-built platform to update it from the ground up over time, it is far more economical to acquire a platform that a strategic partner will update. This approach lets the utility focus precious IT resources on building services specific to its business, customers, regional requirements and regulations, and operational processes.
  • Advanced technology integration. The best strategic partners know harmonizing data across systems in IT and OT is essential for orchestrating a smarter energy grid. That’s why they offer purpose-built grid operation platforms designed to enable seamless integration of new solutions and capabilities like DERMS, inertia management, or dynamic line rating with existing legacy systems. Further, strategic partners can help utilities get the most out of their AI and machine learning capabilities by embracing predictive analytics and data-driven decision-making.
  • Future-ready scalability. The utility domain is already one of the most rapidly changing industries in the world, and there’s no sign of that stopping anytime soon. Choosing a strategic partner means having access to a wealth of expertise and specialized talent to stay abreast of any evolving industry trends and technological advancements.
  • Reduced risk and faster time-to-value. Partnering with a trusted, best-of-breed strategic partner reduces risk by giving you access to a mature, tested product that can be implemented swiftly. This enables utilities organizations to focus on their core mission—operating a reliable, resilient power grid at all times—rather than diverting resources to software development and maintaining your platform infrastructure.

Making the Right Choice for Your Energy Transition

Considering the immediate and meaningful impact of a strategic partnership, it’s clear that finding a trusted vendor is the best way to accelerate your energy transformation and foster innovation.

GE Vernova offers the world’s first end-to-end software portfolio, GridOS®, built specifically for grid orchestration. Designed to modernize and transform the electric grid into the modern energy grid of the future, the GridOS portfolio comprises a flexible, innovation- and future-ready platform and application suite enabling secure and reliable grid orchestration while delivering the resiliency and reliability utilities need.

Ready to Learn More?

Visit our website to discover more about GridOS —and the impact it could have on your organization. And, if you’re ready to accelerate your energy transition journey, connect with us today to take the first step.

Author Section

Author

Thorsten Heller

Chief Innovation Officer
Grid Software, GE Vernova

Driven by his intellectual curiosity and vision that data integration holds the key to the future, German CEO Thorsten Heller co-founded Greenbird, challenging the traditional way utilities approach the smart energy revolution since 2010.

Greenbird (now GE Vernova) developed integration technology to help energy companies manage the information flow for smart metering and smart city applications. While at Greenbird, Thorsten launched Utilihive, a powerful software platform for smart meter management ready to scale and handle big data. It enables customers to be future-ready up to 80% faster than traditional system integration models.

As Chief Innovation Officer for GridOS at GE Vernova, Thorsten brings his considerable experience in enterprise integration, big data, machine learning, AI and real-time analytics to the grid orchestration category. Thorsten lives by the motto “If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough” and he is passionate about making data fly.