Deepak Divan: The Georgia Tech Professor Whose Three-Decade Research Program Seeded Resilient Power Systems and Eaton’s Solid-State Transformer Business

Dr. Deepak Divan holds the John E. Pippin Chair, the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar appointment, and the directorship of the Center for Distributed Energy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His three-decade career as a power-electronics researcher and entrepreneur has produced more commercial spinouts and licensed technologies than any other US academic working in the solid-state transformer (SST) field. The August 2025 Eaton acquisition of Resilient Power Systems is the most consequential single outcome of Divan’s research portfolio.

Divan’s academic career began at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he spent 10 years as a professor before moving to Georgia Tech. While at Wisconsin he founded his first company, Soft Switching Technologies, in 1995, commercializing power-quality compensation technology. Soft Switching was acquired by Schneider Electric in 2002 and became the technical foundation of Schneider’s ProDyn product line.

At Georgia Tech, Divan’s research has focused on high-voltage SST architectures with explicit application to renewable-energy integration, electric-vehicle infrastructure, and distribution-grid modernization. The Center for Distributed Energy under his direction has secured multiple ARPA-E awards including the Modular Solid State Transformer program, which underwrote the Georgia Tech 4-kilovolt-to-13-kilovolt SST development work that subsequently spun out as Resilient Power Systems.

Beyond Soft Switching Technologies and Resilient Power, Divan founded Varentec in Santa Clara, California, where he served as president and chief technology officer from 2011 to 2014. Varentec developed distributed real-time grid-control technologies that complement (rather than compete with) SST applications. Varentec was acquired by IS Solutions in 2020.

The aggregate commercial value generated by Divan’s research output — three companies founded, two acquired by industry incumbents (Schneider Electric, Eaton), one acquired by a private holding company — places him in a small cohort of US academic researchers whose work has translated repeatedly into industrial-scale product lines. The 2025 Eaton-Resilient transaction at an estimated $86 million is the largest single outcome and validates the multi-decade ARPA-E investment thesis that pre-commercial federal research funding into US universities can produce US-based industrial-base outcomes.

Why It Matters

The work of Dr. Deepak Divan and the acquisition of Resilient Power Systems by Eaton has significant implications for the US energy grid. As utilities and grid operators, such as ERCOT and PJM, continue to modernize and integrate renewable energy sources, the development of solid-state transformers (SSTs) and other power electronics technologies will play a crucial role. Divan’s research has focused on high-voltage SST architectures, which can help to improve grid resilience and efficiency. The commercialization of these technologies, as seen in the founding of companies like Soft Switching Technologies and Varentec, demonstrates the potential for academic research to drive innovation and economic growth in the energy sector. The estimated $86 million transaction between Eaton and Resilient Power Systems validates the investment thesis that pre-commercial federal research funding can produce industrial-scale outcomes. As the energy landscape continues to evolve, with growing demand from data centers and increasing adoption of battery energy storage systems (BESS), the development of SSTs and other power electronics technologies will be critical to ensuring a reliable and efficient grid. The work of researchers like Divan and the investment of organizations like ARPA-E will be essential to driving this innovation and shaping the future of the US energy grid.

Critical Perspective

Editorial correction: This post is part of MGRID’s Solid-State Transformer industry coverage. As of May 2026, that body of work systematically framed manufacturer announcements, funding rounds, and laboratory demonstrations as commercial deployments. The reality is that field-deployed commercial-class SST in revenue service globally is measured in single digits, and almost every product cited in this series is at “announced” or “funded” stage, not “operational.” Readers should treat the specific claims in this post against the standards documented in our SST Industry Reality Check (the per-claim audit table maps marketing language to verifiable deployment status). The corrective article is the canonical reference for SST industry reality; this post remains published with its original framing so the editorial drift is traceable.

Related Coverage

• Eaton Closes Acquisition of Resilient Power Systems to Bring Medium-Voltage Solid-State Transformers In-House: Eaton acquires Resilient Power Systems, seeded by Divan’s work
• The 1968 GE Patent That Founded Solid-State Transformer Technology: Divan’s work builds on foundational solid-state transformer technology
• FREEDM Systems Center at NCSU: The 2008 NSF Center That Turned Solid-State Transformers Into Real Devices: Divan’s work aligns with FREEDM Center’s solid-state transformer development
• Eaton & NVIDIA: Beam Rubin DSX for Gigawatt AI Data Centers: Eaton partners with NVIDIA on AI data center transformers