About GridOS

GridOS exists because the tools I needed as a distributed energy installer in Illinois didn’t exist.

I’m Chip. I’m certified by the Illinois Commerce Commission to install distributed energy systems, I’m NABCEP certified, and I’ve built seven software products before this one. I started SolarAI because I got tired of watching developers — both solar developers and data center developers — waste months navigating Illinois’ incentive programs and interconnection queue when the entire process could be compressed into days with the right software.

The founding vision began with solar-powered AI compute nodes. That instinct was directionally right — colocating power with compute reduces exposure to interconnection queues — but categorically too narrow. The durable insight underneath it is not “solar.” It is that whoever controls the workflow connecting power availability to compute deployment captures the value in the AI buildout, regardless of which generation source clears the grid fastest. That is the company we are building: GridOS.

We started with the real, dated, narrow regulatory requirement Illinois data centers actually face (PA 103-0580): a Clean Energy Supply Plan. Most developers hire law firms or consulting firms to produce that document for $50K–$200K over 6 months. GridOS generates the same ICC-ready document in 24 hours for $999 — and that live product is now the first module inside a much larger platform. It is the proof point, not the whole company.

From there, GridOS expands into interconnection intelligence — predicting queue timelines and costs before capital is committed — then enterprise grid software, a power marketplace, and eventually a virtual power platform that optimizes dispatch for AI workloads. The end state returns to the founder’s original vision of deploying compute directly, but as a customer of SolarAI’s own platform rather than as the whole business, and without betting the company on any single generation technology.

The platform you’re using is the result of that frustration. It’s built by someone who has actually filled out ILSFA applications, argued with ComEd about interconnection queue positions, and sat through 6-month feasibility studies that should have taken 6 weeks. Every feature in GridOS exists because I needed it in the field, not because it tested well in a focus group.