How a University Research Partnership Is Making EV Charging Work Almost Anywhere

When OptiGrid began working with researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), the foundation had already been in place for well over a decade.

Nikola Milivojevic, Chief Technology Officer at OptiGrid and a former adjunct professor at CU Boulder, has maintained close ties with the university's power electronics and EV technology faculty for roughly 15 years. That relationship has shaped OptiGrid's technical direction from the start and is now reflected in a strong patent portfolio and a product already deployed in commercial fleets.

The collaboration began during Milivojevic's time at FreeWire Technologies, where early work with CU Boulder's Colorado Power Electronics Center (CoPEC) laid the groundwork for what would become OptiGrid's core technology. When OptiGrid was founded, the relationship came with it and grew. What was a project-level engagement has since expanded into a formal, ongoing research sponsorship with a clear commercial structure.

Today, OptiGrid sponsors CoPEC research lab at CU Boulder, providing financial support in exchange for the ability to help guide research priorities and commercialize suitable technologies that emerge from the lab. CU Boulder patents those technologies; OptiGrid licenses them under a formal IP agreement when it brings them to market. 

The first technology to move through that pipeline is the high-efficiency DC-DC converter, a power electronics module built for DC fast charging. It allows vehicles to be charged by OptiGrid's DC fast charger regardless of the vehicle's voltage level, so that existing charging infrastructure doesn’t become a barrier to fleet electrification. OptiGrid’s DC-DC technology is rooted in research conducted in close collaboration with CU Boulder, where CoPEC researchers developed the control models and analysis that validated OptiGrid’s core technology. Eight patents tied to that work now anchor OptiGrid's broader 46-patent portfolio spanning its power electronics and EV charging technology.

"CU Boulder has some of the best power electronics researchers in the country including Prof. Luca Corradini and Prof. Dragan Maksimovic, and we've spent 15 years building a relationship with them, first in the classroom, then in the lab, and now in the market," Milivojevic said. "When you've worked alongside these people that long, teaching with them, building with them, the line between academic and commercial starts to disappear. We played an active role in the early technology development, and CU Boulder provided strong functional validation through modeling and simulation. This collaboration is directly reflected in our products." 

The DC-DC converter was built to be incorporated into OptiGrid's battery-integrated DC fast chargers, enabling a single unit to serve both low-voltage and high-voltage vehicles.  That same technology is now integrated into Orange EV trucks, which are currently shipping with the platform on board. The integration of OptiGrid’s DC-DC technology enables Orange EV’s low voltage truck to greatly increase its charging rate and makes it compatible with standard CCS1 charging standards. These two improvements have unlocked massive sales opportunities which they have already begun shipping trucks to. Because the converter is controller-agnostic, it can connect into third-party OEM and energy platforms via CAN bus, opening the door to broader adoption beyond OptiGrid's own hardware. The next technology in the pipeline addresses the grid side of the equation. 

The U.S. electrical grid presents a real interoperability challenge for charger manufacturers. Depending on the installation site, available power may be single-phase or three-phase, at different voltage levels. Historically, that has meant charger manufacturers either build multiple hardware configurations or require site operators to upgrade their grid connections. 

OptiGrid and CoPEC are developing a universal grid adapter, a single power electronics platform that can interface with any of those grid configurations. CU Boulder has patented the technology, and development is continuing with OptiGrid's product requirements driving the roadmap.

The two technologies are complementary by design. The DC-DC converter makes OptiGrid-powered vehicles compatible with any charger. The universal grid adapter would make OptiGrid's chargers compatible with any grid connection. For fleet operators evaluating long-term infrastructure investments, that combination reduces site-specific risk and simplifies procurement. For investors, it represents a defensible technical moat: 46 patents, a 15-year academic relationship, and a commercialization track record that is already generating revenue.