Overstory offers actionable vegetation intelligence for power utilities. Vegetation is a major cause of power outages and wildfires related to the electric grid. This software enables utilities to optimize their resources, mitigate vegetation risk, and future-proof their operations programs, leading to smarter infrastructure management and safer communities.
Typically, vegetation management is a significant portion of a utility's operations budget, yet it lacks advanced technology and analytics. Overstory helps maximize precious time and money by prioritizing impactful vegetation management work, reducing unnecessary trimming costs, and focusing on riskier areas.
Data-driven vegetation management is crucial. Expenses in this area have been rising, from 50% of overhead maintenance budgets in 2015 to 75% in 2020 and continuing to increase. There's also a decline in labor availability, with 54.4% of workers leaving their positions in the last five years and an aging workforce. Additionally, extreme weather has led to a 78% increase in weather-related outages in the last 10 years.
Overstory's technology combines AI with remote sensing sources like satellite and aerial imagery to create vegetation data. It then combines this data with local information such as asset location, wildfire maps, terrain, etc. Using vegetation intelligence, it assists utilities in building efficient, data-driven vegetation management programs.
By shifting to proactive vegetation management, utilities can address risks from encroachment, hazard trees, and wildfires before they occur. This helps reduce the danger, cost, and frequency of reactive work as vegetation risk grows with severe and extreme weather.
Customers have had positive experiences with Overstory. For example, the vegetation management experts have validated its deliverables' accuracy in Spain, and the results are implemented in the vegetation management cycle for 10,000 miles of powerline. Others have been impressed with its forest health monitoring dashboard and believe it has strong growth potential.
In conclusion, Overstory works with numerous investor-owned utilities, cooperatives, and municipalities across North and South America and Europe, helping them optimize resources, improve reliability, and future-proof their operations programs.
