Software-defined power: FlexGen’s HybridOS turns batteries (and now solar) into grid thinkers

Hardware built the energy transition, but it’s software that will perfect it. FlexGen sees batteries following the same path solar panels took—from cutting-edge to commonplace. Its HybridOS platform acts as the conductor of a vast digital orchestra, keeping thousands of devices tuned, in sync, and ready to respond the moment they’re called upon.

pv magazine USA spoke with chief technology officer Hugh Scott at RE+ in Las Vegas, where the conversation centered on HybridOS, the company’s Linux-based software platform that runs and coordinates its energy storage systems.

“One of the core details of our HybridOS is that it’s designed fundamentally flexibly, which makes it smart, and it easily evolves with constantly changing power markets,” said Scott.

The battery market is rapidly evolving, driven by technology, policy, and economics. From instant grid reactions that stabilize power flows and respond to grid anomalies and price shifts, to ongoing capacity expansions, falling costs, and hardware-software integration breakthroughs, every part of the industry continues to evolve. Add evolving policy, trade politics, and batteries enabling data center queue skipping, and it’s clear that the industry’s most valuable resource may now be adaptability.

Launched early in 2024, HybridOS expanded into the solar market the following year, offering broader grid support services. Its flexible architecture made that transition a natural evolution.

Scott described the company’s balancing act as managing how and when each rack or inverter charges or discharges to balance performance, efficiency, and system life. In the past, that orchestration was driven mainly by human electricity demand. Now, it must also adapt to the solar cycle, which operates on its own schedule as the sun moves across the sky.

FlexGen’s commissioning process, closely tied to its ability to visualize the “digital internals” of energy systems, begins before the equipment ever reaches the field. The company wires its HybridOS hosting hardware into a project’s control system in its own lab, allowing engineers to test and verify the integration in advance. According to Scott, FlexGen’s engineers can “see” into a project’s digital twin long before installation, using lab-based integration to verify communications and performance.

In ideal conditions, FlexGen says its process allows a battery system to go from installed to commissioned in as little as four days, compared to competitors that might take 40 days to begin generating revenue.

Commissioning involves both “cold” and “hot” phases. Cold commissioning covers physical wiring and partial subsystem charging to confirm correct operation, while hot commissioning powers up the system fully and verifies repeatable, stable performance.

Throughout this process, HybridOS directs communications between each subsystem—from rack to container to inverter—determining how and when the project interacts with the grid beyond the meter. At the same time, the software monitors key metrics such as state of charge, independently from the battery’s own management systems.

As an expert in system control and optimization, FlexGen recently stepped in to acquire assets from a struggling industry competitor. The deal follows Powin Energy’s bankruptcy, through which FlexGen will acquire the company’s intellectual property, including its software, hardware, IT systems, and spare parts inventory. Once complete, the acquisition will expand FlexGen’s support to more than 25 GWh of battery energy storage systems across 200 projects in 10 countries.

(Read: “What happens behind the meter stays behind the meter“)

The HybridOS battery interface can already connect with more than 70 system configurations, meaning some Modbus mapping and integration must now happen in the field to accommodate new hardware. Scott noted that HybridOS’s modular design makes this flexibility possible, allowing it to adapt as new products and configurations enter the market.

This deep understanding of control systems from various manufacturers has allowed HybridOS and FlexGen to integrate data streams from solar inverters, trackers, and other equipment with minimal friction. The expansion makes sense for a platform already built to manage complex energy systems, connecting storage and grid assets under one control layer.

FlexGen is also extending into the data center space. Data centers typically require near-constant power output, and interruptions in computation can directly affect profitability. These unyielding loads have raised both interconnection and electricity cost concerns. However, analysis suggests that if data centers can tolerate even modest flexibility in power consumption, they can deploy faster and at lower cost.

Scott says the power grid often faces a “four-hour problem,” and the battery industry offers four-hour solutions.

Onsite, behind-the-meter batteries running HybridOS can respond to real-time grid conditions, discharging precisely when needed to smooth demand peaks. In practice, such systems allow data centers to appear to the grid as if they are curbing their load, even while maintaining continuous computing operations across quadrillions of Nvidia transistors.

The power grid has always been like an orchestra, relying on timing and coordination. For more than a century, large power plants have carried the steady rhythm, while users—businesses, homes, and cities—demanded energy on cue. Today, renewables like wind and solar have changed that rhythm entirely, marching to the beat of their own drum.

But unpredictability doesn’t mean disorder. Batteries, guided by intelligent software, step in to keep the system synchronized. Platforms like HybridOS hold the baton, keeping time, blending fluctuating energy flows, and turning variability into something that once again feels steady.

What was once a one-way performance—power plants supplying passive users—is becoming a responsive ensemble tuned in real time.

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