27
Smart GridTeam “Grino”

Solar on the roof. Safe voltage at home.

At noon, rooftop solar pushes street voltage past the legal limit — appliances break and inverters shut down. A small box at the inverter keeps the home safe and the panels working.

PRESENTER
Radik Grigoryan
TEAM
Mikayel Sarkisyan, Vitaliy Sukhoplechev, Zakhar Shcherbakov, Ara Galstyan
An ordinary Armenian street

Morning: voltage is normal

Model of a typical village street · legal limit 242 V
Armenia today

This is not a theory.

~59,000
solar plants on ENA’s grid
≈ 1 in 3
36%
customers get over‑voltage
industry expert estimate
3,913
claims for damaged appliances to ENA in 2025
≈ 11 every day
¼ of all complaints
Sources: ENA temporary manager via Armenpress, 03.09.2026 · share of customers with over-voltage: industry expert estimate, 03.10.2026 · PSRC quarterly complaint reports on ENA, 2025 (3,913 of 15,453; per day = ÷ 365)
Why it is not fixed

Nobody controls home inverters.

Armenia
No rule yet
Chinamust be controllable, from 2026
✓
Germanyno control → 60% cap
✓
Australiavoltage control mandatory
✓
Sources: NEA (China) 2025 No. 7 — new distributed solar "observable, measurable, adjustable, controllable" from 01.01.2026 · Solarspitzengesetz 2025 (Germany) · AS/NZS 4777.2:2020 (Australia)
SunGuard · one box per home

Works from the very first home.

  1. Watches the voltage every second at your panel.
  2. Keeps your panels working — eases power down before the inverter’s emergency shutdown.
  3. On your phone — over home Wi-Fi: live voltage, alerts, and a log you can show ENA.
More homes online → we see the whole street and share the reduction fairly.
Line D: 252 V → inverters shut down → 245 V → they restart → 252 V → … (emergency shutdown cycle)
home Wi-Fi → app
Model of a village block: one transformer, several lines · legal limit 242 V · inverter emergency shutdown above 253 V (EN 50549-1)
Where the problem lines are

Problem lines follow rooftops, not solar farms.

4,696
problem lines
68 = problem lines per 10,000 customers
2,816 = problem lines in the marz
Armavir, Ararat and Aragatsotn host many large solar farms — they connect at 6–35 kV, not to street lines. Rooftop plants are what overload 0.4 kV streets.
Sources: PSRC voltage data, June 2026 (solar problem lines: high at 9–13 h in June, not high at night in December); customers: PSRC 2025
Business model

The economics of one box.

Unit economics
Parts (Yerevan retail, Wi-Fi version)$29
Assembly, case, certification assumption≈ $15
Price to the home assumption$79
Gross margin≈ 45%
Market
Homes with solar today ENA, Sept 202659,000
New solar homes per year PSRC, 2025≈ 19,000
Year 1 — 5% of solar homes≈ 3,000 boxes ≈ $0.24 M
Year 3 — 20% + new installs via installers≈ 16,000 boxes ≈ $1.3 M
Later: the street map from our boxes — a data service for ENA.
Price, costs and adoption are assumptions; plants and growth are sourced (ENA via Armenpress, 03.09.2026; PSRC annual reports 2024/2025; parts: ChipDip.am, 03.10.2026).
Live demo
A real line from the regulator’s data
Gyumri · transformer 4661 · 334 homes
Rooftop solar on it: 300 kW
A clear June day, noon
TodayCheapest fix(transformer tap)
Hours over the limit, per day70
Highest voltage249 V238 V
Solar this line can take205 kW354 kW
Same wires: no hours over the limit, and 1.7× more solar.
Model of this line with average assumptions (length, wire, transformer); real data from ENA in the pilot. Customers and observed hours: PSRC open voltage data.
SunGuard box

Under $50 of parts.

≈ $43
parts for one box, shop prices in Yerevan
connects over home Wi-Fi → app
Sources: ChipDip.am retail prices of the parts, 03.10.2026 (≈ 16,500 AMD; some items on order)
Customers

Who buys it — and why.

1
Families with solar at the end of long lines

Example: if the inverter shuts down 1 hour a day for 100 sunny days, a 10 kW system loses ≈ 800 kWh ≈ 38,000 AMD a year.

SunGuard: $79 (≈ 30,000 AMD) — pays back in under a year.

Plus: appliances protected, a log for ENA claims.

example, not a measurement
2
Solar installers

Fewer call-backs about “my panels switch off at noon”, a better offer than competitors.

Sell it with each of ~19,000 new plants a year.

3
Later: ENA

A live map of problem lines without buying new meters.

The family case is an illustrative example, not a measurement · price $79 is an assumption · new plants: PSRC annual reports 2024/2025
What it took

24 hours, three pivots.

  • 7 ideas tested — and dropped, with reasonsbatteries, automatic line switching, phase balancer, selling noon surplus, dynamic tariffs, sensors in every substation, long-range radio — all listed on our research site
  • 823,563 rows of the regulator’s data read → 4,696 problem lines found
  • Armenian law checked: radio bands, net metering, grid rules → the design changed twice
  • A grid model and a calculator for 400 real lines, cross-checked to 0.1 V
  • Three pivots after mentor feedback: software for ENA → a box for problem streets → a box for every home, over Wi-Fi
  • The box designed with Yerevan prices: under $50
Team “Grino” · #27

Help us turn the first street green.

  1. 50 solar homes on 3 problem lines for a pilot (Kars or Gegham branch)
  2. 2 solar installers to fit the boxes
  3. ENA meter data for those lines — to prove the effect
Full research
Scan me