Overstory

Last week, we held our first Overstory Field Day in Spokane with a few of our local customers. 💚 No technology replaces the hard-won field knowledge of these crews, so we put boots to the ground to see how Overstory's tech can help scale that expertise for more efficient, more resilient operations. 🥾 Many thanks to JH Land Consultants, LLC for sharing their wisdom on working with federal agencies and to Amanda Opp for her expertise on using vegetation intelligence for more successful grant applications. And thank you, Inland Power & Light Co., for hosting such a great event. Deeply proud and grateful to work with such a brilliant community of customers and partners. VIGILANTE ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE INC Kootenai Electric Cooperative Northern Lights, Inc. Electric Cooperative Ravalli Electric Co-Op Flathead Electric Cooperative, Inc.

Managing vegetation risks in the face of extreme weather, rising energy demand, and tightening regulations is no small feat. 😮💨 Many utilities are turning to advanced technology to meet those challenges, but they may fall short on operations goals by choosing the wrong tool for the job or missing critical use cases. In the Playbook for Operationalizing Advanced Vegetation Intelligence, we walk through practical tips from three seasoned vegetation management experts (Ben Gura, Steven Frazier, and Nick Day) on how to evaluate, integrate, and put this tech to work to optimize your operations program. 👉 Download the guide to learn: *How to build the business case for vegetation intelligence *Tips for evaluating and selecting the right tech and partners *Ways to use data to drive impactful, proactive decision-making With practical insights from thoughtful VM leaders from ATC, ComEd, and OGE Energy Corp., this playbook offers a roadmap to resilient, data-driven vegetation management. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ecXJ7eCB

With about 4,000 startups in the Amsterdam ecosystem, we’re honored to be among the top 10. Year three on WIRED's hottest European startups list and we just keep getting hotter. 🔥 Here’s why: The electrical grid is the backbone of the global energy transformation, and it’s under unprecedented strain. EVs, data centers, and heat pumps are growing at a breakneck pace. Extreme weather events and wildfires are putting lives at risk and threatening critical grid infrastructure. We need a resilient grid now more than ever. Trees falling or growing into power lines is the single greatest cause of power outages and catastrophic wildfires, but we’re combining remote sensing data and AI to help utilities predict and mitigate those vegetation-related risks before they ever materialize. 🌳 Read more in the WIRED article: https://lnkd.in/gBQd-_hU We’re based in Amsterdam, but our team is spread across 12 countries, speaks 15 languages, and is represented by 16 nationalities. We’re rooted in diversity (just like the ecosystems we’re working to protect), and our team is growing. Join us: https://lnkd.in/gk6G-wwZ

Last week, our Product and Engineering teams gathered in Amsterdam for an exciting week to reconnect, create, and innovate together. 🚀 More than just a meeting, our team gathering reminded us how passion and purpose drive our mission at Overstory. We charted our path for the coming year to plan how we can best support the utilities at the forefront of the energy transition, help people make smarter decisions about our natural resources, and ultimate serve our communities. Like all meaningful work, building the Overstory platform comes with its challenges. And we are so proud and grateful to take on those challenges together with this team of gritty, creative, and kind people. 💚 (Fueled, of course, by tasty farm-to-table meals along the way.)

“Extreme weather, aging infrastructure and new technology are coming together in a way that creates an opportunity to use better technology, including AI-driven software, to help us keep the lights on and keep the grid affordable.” -Dr. Mark Dyson, Managing director of carbon-free electricity at RMI. Facing that perfect storm of climate, market, and infrastructure challenges, utilities in particular are remarkably well-positioned to shepherd in a new era of climate solutions for safer, more reliable power. Using AI to assess priority risks to grid reliability—specifically hurricanes (Rhizome, mentioned here) or hazard trees—utilities can take meaningful action before those risks materialize. 🔗 Read more: https://lnkd.in/dEghK8Mh

During the sweltering Texas summer, millions spent weeks without power due to trees falling on power lines during Hurricane Beryl, which pummeled Houston and surrounding areas only weeks after a powerful wind storm. These outages, and their human toll, received national attention and are a stark reminder of the fragility of the grid and the risks of vegetation near power lines. Risks that are more dynamic and unpredictable thanks to changing weather. As the old adage goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Utilities need better measurement of current vegetation risks across their network to ensure they’re tackling the most critical issues as they arise. Many utilities are recognizing this need and have proposed implementing or expanding the use of technology for remote vegetation inspections in their rate cases. While greater utility investment in remote sensing is clearly needed, ratepayers are forced to foot the bill for increased risk management and surveillance, and utility commissions must balance proposed investments with consumer affordability. CenterPoint Energy, which was at the eye of the Texas storms, recently requested $9.9M in capital for a LiDAR-based model of its network in its pre-Beryl System Resiliency Plan. But Texas’ PUC staff recommended denying that request for failing to consider cheaper alternatives and demonstrating that benefits exceed costs. And Texas isn’t alone; utility commissions in Michigan and Illinois have also publicly pushed back on the high cost of LiDAR for vegetation programs in the last year. Increasingly, utility commissions are working to ensure that utilities are using the most cost-effective tools for vegetation management programs. LiDAR is a well-established technology, but it is no longer the only option. In recent years, companies like Overstory have been using satellite and aerial imagery to identify vegetation risks across utility networks. And despite widely-touted cost declines, recent rate cases indicate that LiDAR still costs 4-5x as much as satellite-based analytics. LiDAR can be the best tool in some cases, but satellite-based analytics are purpose-built for outcome-based vegetation management programs, with affordable, regularly-refreshed views of risk at the system level. Both satellite and LiDAR have a place in modern utility operations, but as several utility commissions have recently demonstrated, gold-plated proposals to uncritically scale up LiDAR will be heavily scrutinized. Utilities must ensure they do their diligence evaluating alternatives to make sure they assign the proper technology to the job based on their needs. As staff at the Illinois Commerce Commission recently testified “high-resolution satellite technology…is a much cheaper, cost-effective alternative [to LiDAR.]… Staff considers the existing and potential future use of satellite technology to be significant”

🔦 Arborist Spotlight: For years, our very own Rachel Glover traversed Pacific Gas and Electric Company's territory as a subcontracted utility forester, assessing vegetation risk across their network. In her current role at Overstory, she recently revisited the same location near Big Sur where she had previously had “her worst day at work”—this time by reviewing satellite imagery from the safety of her home office. Rachel shared the story of her worst day on-site in Big Sur with the team, including her harrowing experience climbing up a dangerous landslide to inspect power lines. Imagine scrambling up a steep cliffside with no trail and no service, only to slide back down in defeat. 😮💨 It took her team four attempts to complete the job. With Overstory, though, Rachel was grateful and relieved to be able to safely revisit the site once again. Checking for hazard trees and vegetation risk along this dangerous 10-span stretch was much easier with the right intelligence. (And without any climbing gear to get there.) “Fortunately, this time, I didn’t have to roll myself down the mountain and didn’t get any catastrophic injuries along the way.” Overstory’s actionable vegetation intelligence helps utilities safely, accurately, and efficiently assess their networks for vegetation risk. See Rachel's photo and the matching satellite imagery she analyzed here, and learn more about Overstory at overstory.com/solutions.

We were thrilled to kick off #treesandutilities with this year's Women in VM workshop, introduced by our very own Lynn Petesch, and are looking forward to an excellent program ahead. Be sure to swing by booth #600 to say hello to the team and grab a maple candy while you're on the exhibit floor. We'd love to meet you! 👋

Asked about what will solve the growing problem of catastrophic wildfires, Bill Clerico of Convective Capital said, “It’s going to get solved as a combination of consistent and repeated forest management, building towns and cities that are fire adapted, building great infrastructure, and then having the ability to detect and respond quickly." Indeed, no one tool can solve the complex challenge of wildfires alone. But we're proud to be part of the solution, backed by Convective Capital, and arming electric utilities with critical data-driven decision-making around vegetation management. Read more in Heatmap News: https://lnkd.in/eJkVC9rN

Our tech team is growing. 🌳 Are you our next VP Engineering?