R&D Behind the Scenes

In the first of a series of short interviews with OPAL-RT’s R&D experts and leaders, we sat down with Frederic Monfet , VP of Technologies, to ask him a few questions regarding the future of OPAL-RT’s innovative technology roadmap.

Question 1: What drives the team to innovate? What is the driving source of passion?

Frederic Monfet: I think for me and the team, what drives us the most is the expertise we have. It’s extremely rewarding to see that our applications are used by our clients to develop these green energy products. People always want to push themselves so that we can provide products that enable much cleaner energy. That’s why I get up in the morning and want to work at OPAL-RT. We can see the direct correlation between our products and how our customers use them in world-changing innovative ways.

Question 2: What are some of the biggest obstacles or challenges that you face, or the industry and customers face when it comes to knowing which products to put on our roadmap?

Frederic Monfet: One of the challenges we face internally is finding the right balance of which features to push forward with the technology, which to maintain, and which to deprecate. For our customers, the challenge is that they don’t know exactly what they need because they’re in the middle of developing it, so the needs quickly emerge. We pride ourselves as always being the company that can help our customers solve the newest or most unique challenge but, we also must commit to supporting that large portfolio of custom needs into the future.

Question 3: What excites you or the team about future opportunities, be it a year, five years, or ten years out?

Frederic Monfet: I think the biggest opportunity we face in the future is how to simulate the unpredictable nature of renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines. Our customers need to maximize these resources and ensure a smooth transition when facing unexpected changes in weather or energy production. This is a big challenge that we are working to address.

Question 4: What can you tell us about some big projects on the horizon?

Frederic Monfet: We have a vision of migrating our tools to web-based interfaces to make our products easier to use and cater to the new generation of engineers. We also want to collaborate with other technologies to make our products more compatible and versatile.

Bonus Question: What’s your favorite feature you’ve released this past year?

Frederic Monfet: One of the most exciting new features is standalone simulation, which decouples the UI from the simulation, allowing users to efficiently run simulations with different parameters in the cloud. This expedites the process and enables users to test various scenarios before running real-life simulations, representing a significant step forward in utilizing cloud services effectively.

Read the full magazine here.