Partnerships for Innovation: Building the next Generation of Electrical Distribution
September 8, 2026
By Elan Meng
The energy transition and sweeping technological change are creating new opportunities for rethinking how electricity is generated, distributed, stored, and consumed. But no single company, technology, or industry can deliver this transformation alone.
That is the principle behind Schneider Electric’s Partnerships for Innovation initiative, which brings together organizations across the energy ecosystem to accelerate practical solutions to some of the industry’s biggest challenges.
This is the first blog in a new series exploring how partnership and collaboration can help build a more efficient, resilient, and sustainable energy future. In this series, Schneider will explore one of the foundational concepts shaping that future: hybrid AC/DC electrical distribution architecture.
Firstly, some terminology
To make these ideas more accessible, it helps to clarify a few key terms:
- Hybrid AC/DC architecture: An electrical system that uses both alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC), optimizing each where it performs best.
- DC-native technologies: Technologies such as solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, and digital devices that naturally generate, store, or consume DC power.
- Conversion losses: The energy lost when electricity is converted between AC and DC, as well as DC to DC, by converters or inverters, which can happen multiple times across a system.
- Interoperability: The ability of technologies from different providers to connect and operate together safely and efficiently.
- Open standards: Shared frameworks and specifications that ensure compatibility across solutions forming the foundation of a scalable, partner-driven energy ecosystem.
An electrical grid designed for a different world
Many of today’s fastest-growing energy technologies are inherently DC systems:
- Solar panels generate DC power
- Batteries store DC power
- Electric vehicles charge and discharge DC power
- IT server and storage loads in data centers, LED lighting, smartphones, and countless digital devices consume DC power
Yet most of these technologies are typically connected via an electrical architecture designed around AC distribution. This causes electricity to be repeatedly converted between AC and DC before reaching its destination. Each conversion adds equipment, complexity, and energy loss. While the impact of these conversions appears small, the cumulative effect becomes significant when applied across millions of devices, vehicles, batteries, and distributed energy resources.
Beyond efficiency, as sites expand distributed energy resources such as EV charging capacity or add renewable generation, the grid connection itself becomes a bottleneck. Ensuring distributed energy resources are arranged as a cohesive hybrid AC/DC system, critically with an interlinking converter (ILC) that can control the power flow, can relieve that capacity constraint—enabling meaningful electrification without waiting years for a utility grid upgrade.
Events like the Iberian Peninsula blackout highlight the growing challenges of managing increasingly interconnected and renewable-rich electrical systems. The issue isn’t that we are generating too little power; it’s that we are distributing it through a system that wasn’t built for this level of complexity. A practical path forward is a hybrid AC/DC architecture.
What hybrid AC/DC looks like in practice
Hybrid AC/DC architectures align electrical distribution with the realities of modern energy systems. Rather than forcing all loads and sources through a single electrical pathway, hybrid systems recognize that AC and DC both play important roles.
In practice, a hybrid AC/DC architecture:
- Maintains the existing AC connection to the grid
- Preserves AC distribution for conventional loads
- Creates dedicated pathways for DC-native sources and loads
- Links the grid and DC microgrid through an interlinking converter
- Reduces unnecessary conversion steps
- Improves integration between solar, storage, EV charging, and digital technologies
In practice, the applications where hybrid AC/DC delivers the most measurable value are data centers (where server loads are already inherently DC), EV charging hubs (where batteries, chargers, and solar are all DC-native), and commercial buildings with a high share of DC loads—in that order of immediate return.
Early pilot projects demonstrated the potential of this approach. Depending on the application and load mix, organizations have reported efficiency improvements typically in the range of 10–30% by reducing unnecessary conversion steps and better aligning distribution with DC-native loads and sources.
The premise is simple: use AC where it makes the most sense, use DC where it makes the most sense, and minimize conversions between them.
Making hybrid AC/DC reality takes collaboration
The success of AC distribution was built on decades of collaboration that established standards, safety requirements, interoperability rules, design practices, and a product ecosystem. Hybrid AC/DC systems require a similar foundation.
That is why organizations across the electrical industry are working together to define common approaches for safety, protection, interoperability, and system design. Schneider Electric is a founding member of Current/OS, an initiative helping to do just that.
Similar initiatives—Europe’s Open Direct Current Alliance (ODCA), the EMerge Alliance in North America, PEDF (Photovoltaics, Energy Storage, Direct Current, and Flexibility) in China, and the Korea Direct Current Alliance (K-DCA)—are advancing complementary efforts. Together, these alliances are shaping international standards for broader adoption.
For customers, this means greater confidence that technologies from different providers will work together safely, reliably, and consistently.
Collaborative standardization also covers safety and design requirements for Low-Voltage DC (LVDC) systems—including protection coordination, insulation requirements, and wiring practices—where clear frameworks are essential for broader commercial adoption.
Building the next chapter together
No single company can create a new electrical distribution paradigm on its own.
Its success requires collaboration and partnerships across manufacturers, technology providers, design firms, contractors, system integrators, standards organizations, and end users.
This philosophy sits at the heart of Schneider Electric’s Partnerships for Innovation initiative. Through active participation in organizations such as Current/OS and collaboration with partners across the ecosystem, Schneider Electric is innovating to create next-generation electrical distribution.
In future posts in this series, Schneider will speak with experts from industry-leading partners behind the core technologies enabling this new era of electrification—from lighting and cabling to solar and battery storage (BESS) integration with bidirectional power flow, interoperability frameworks, and real-world pilot projects. Understanding how these innovations work together may prove just as important as the technologies themselves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a hybrid AC/DC microgrid relieve grid capacity constraints without a full grid upgrade?
It can. By connecting a DC microgrid to the utility grid through an Interlinking Converter (ILC), power imports and exports can be kept within the site’s agreed grid capacity, while local solar and battery storage supply additional demand behind the meter. This can help defer or reduce the need for costly grid upgrades.
How does a hybrid AC/DC approach simplify solar and battery storage (BESS) integration?
Solar panels and batteries both operate on DC. In a conventional AC building, energy may pass through multiple AC/DC and DC/AC conversion stages before reaching the end use. A hybrid AC/DC architecture can connect these resources directly to a DC bus through DC/DC converters, reducing conversion stages and associated energy losses, while simplifying the integration of solar PV, battery storage, and DC-native loads.
What standards govern LVDC systems in commercial buildings?
Low-Voltage DC (LVDC) systems are covered by a combination of IEC standards and emerging DC-specific standards from alliances such as Current/OS – the leading global alliance driving this development, alongside regional organizations. Beyond extensive work across all Current/OS technical committees, Schneider Electric is also actively working on IEC codes & standards, at all levels: System, Installation Rules and Product standards.
Where should organizations start—data centers, EV charging, or commercial buildings?
Data centers offer the strongest near-term opportunity, as their DC-native server loads benefit directly from higher efficiency and power density. These high power-density demands have driven the development of dedicated DC solutions, such as 800VDC architecture. EV charging hubs come next, especially when paired with on-site solar and battery storage. Commercial buildings are the longest-horizon opportunity, where we should focus on ramping up the ecosystem to embrace more DC-ready loads and sources.
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