Project
GridMax
Edge-deployed control software for microgrids at fixed military installations, recommending how the system should run and keeping mission-critical loads powered while islanded.
Built with Python, FastAPI, React
StatusProprietary. Contact for a demonstration.
GridMax is the Tertiary, or long-horizon optimization, layer of a microgrid control system for fixed Department of War installations. The software recommends how the microgrid should run and keeps mission-critical loads powered while the installation is islanded. The operator and the installation’s existing controls carry out the actions.
Scope
UFGS 26 37 13 names eight functions for the Tertiary layer: energy optimization, grid interaction, demand response, fuel management, curtailment requests, HMI and visualization, real-time analytics, and renewable energy forecasting. GridMax uses the control protocols the specification requires. An installation can therefore add the software above equipment already in place rather than replacing hardware. GridMax is not a full control system, not a Primary or Secondary controller, not a cloud service, and not a tactical or expeditionary product.
Edge operation
The software runs on the installation rather than in a data center, and continues to function in denied, degraded, intermittent or disconnected conditions. An operator can place GridMax in a fully disconnected state with no loss of core capability. Cloud-hosted energy management fails at the moment it exists for, since the commercial grid an installation depends on is now a named target.
Operator authority
An operator approves every recommendation before anything acts on the system. The architecture provides no path from the optimization layer to an actuator, which is a structural property of the system rather than a setting an operator configures.
Standards traceability
Every function maps to UFC 3-550-04 and UFGS 26 37 13, the Department of War’s binding Unified Facilities Criteria and Guide Specification for installation microgrids. The mapping is auditable function by function, and the traceability is enforced in the codebase rather than asserted in documentation.
On-site reactors
GridMax is built to operate above the small reactors the department is now siting, respecting the reactor’s operating envelope and orchestrating the rest of the installation around that constraint. The software reads the reactor’s non-safety information and offers advice, and never commands the reactor.
Status
GridMax is pre-pilot and pre-revenue. A provisional patent application is on file with the United States Patent and Trademark Office: application 64/144,404, “Edge-Deployed Tertiary Microgrid Control System With Structurally Bounded Advisory Automation”, filed 30 August 2026, with Max Makovsky as sole inventor.
The next step is independent validation: a hardware-in-the-loop evaluation at a university smart-grid laboratory, followed by a national-laboratory evaluation against IEEE 2030.8, the standard for microgrid controller testing.