August 13th, 2020 — The Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, California in November 2018 was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history. Following a thorough investigation, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection identified the cause of ignition as vegetation encroaching onto electric distribution lines owned and operated by PG&E. That same year, at least 17 additional wildfires in the state were triggered by power lines.

PG&E, which only recently emerged from bankruptcy after facing an estimated $30B in cumulative wildfire liabilities, is far from alone in shouldering the risks associated with managing our nation’s 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission and 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines. As the world braces for more frequent and intense catastrophic events associated with a changing climate, a renewed focus on critical infrastructure visibility and safety is imperative.

Overstory uses machine learning to interpret satellite imagery and climate data in order to monitor the risk and impact of vegetation on power lines. As a result, Overstory facilitates improved predictive planning, maintenance, and verification processes that ultimately reduce the risk of fires, hazards, fines, claims, and outages for transmission & distribution (T&D) planners and operators.

Utilities Face Major Challenges in Maintaining Safety & Reliability

Vegetation has a major impact on T&D across the country: according to Midwestern T&D co-op Hoosier Energy, vegetation and ‘unknown’ sources (often tree limbs blowing onto lines during storms) accounted for 42% of the region’s outages in 2017. While the California Public Utilities Commission estimates that power lines cause less than 10% of wildfires in the state, the cost of this small percentage is colossal. The Camp Fire, for instance, led to $12.5B in insured losses, making it the most expensive natural disaster in the world that year.

The dynamic nature of vegetation poses difficulties for utilities. Tree-specific attributes such as height, heath, and species segmentation play a key role in assumptions that utilities make to predict encroachment potential. Historically, this data simply hasn’t existed. According to Erik Steeb, Sr. Technical Leader of Technology Innovation at EPRI, the top innovation challenges utilities are pursuing today include wildfire mitigation, lowering operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, and improving vegetation management strategies.

While a number of early stage innovators offer visualization dashboards and insights for existing utility datasets, the ability to unlock new low-cost data streams is fundamental to building a differentiated offering. While drones are able to provide high resolution data for a specific location, high resolution satellite imagery is better suited to address vegetation challenges across long distances while still meeting utilities’ granularity threshold. Overstory is competitively positioned as a flexible drop-in solution that provides greater visibility into T&D planning and operation via more temporally and geospatially granular insights.

Powerhouse Ventures Invests in Overstory

Overstory’s platform uses machine learning to commercialize insights from cutting-edge research techniques incorporating climate data, multispectral and hyperspectral data like near-infrared, SAR data, stereo imaging, and 3D mapping. By replacing costly and time-consuming helicopter, drone, and field visits, Overstory facilitates cost savings and reduces inspection time for utilities, third-party vegetation contractors, and insurance firms.

Overstory’s product can be used as a standalone platform or fully integrated into existing systems via a customizable API. By serving as a platform for all available data sources, including custom data layers added by each customer, Overstory is positioned to serve as an integrated end-to-end solution for vegetation management and predictive insight.

Powerhouse Ventures invested in Overstory’s seed round, led by Pale Blue Dot, alongside Techstars and Futuristic VC. Overstory’s experienced and deeply technical team, including Co-Founder & CEO Indra den Bakker, Co-Founder & CTO Roelof Pieters, and Co-Founder & COO Anniek Schouten, is poised to transform how utilities manage vegetation and mitigate risk.

Special thanks to Alexandra Harbour and Ry Storey-Fisher.

To read more about Powerhouse Ventures’ other publicly-announced investments, visit our Insights page.