Rhizome recently announced an agreement with Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC) to help fortify and modernize the regional utility network through a specifically built gridCAVA, a climate risk product for municipal and cooperative utilities. The software tool will provide Vermont Electric Cooperative insights into potential future climate vulnerabilities, ultimately preventing failures against extreme weather-caused power outages through prioritizing grid resilience investments.
Since 1938, the non-profit Vermont Electric Cooperative has been a member-owned electric distribution utility that provides safe, affordable and reliable electric service to about 33,000 members in 75 communities in northern Vermont.
Spanning more than 2,500 miles of rural, legacy and primarily off-road overhead distribution lines, VEC has observed a rapid increase in outages due to ice and wind events over the past five years. Due to limited financial investment capabilities and resources, prioritizing resilience efforts is crucial for VEC. It is the largest locally-owned electric distribution utility in Vermont and is nationally recognized for its innovation and advanced use of technology.
“VEC is eager to partner with Rhizome to pinpoint where future hazards will impact our grid. As a non-profit, member-owned cooperative with an expansive distribution system, we can’t afford to be anything less than targeted with our investments and upgrades,” said Cyril Brunner, innovation and technology leader at VEC. “That’s what led us to Rhizome, and we’re excited to use their invaluable expertise. This is an important tool and partnership in our mission to provide safe, affordable, and reliable energy throughout Vermont.”
Rhizome, launched in 2023, supports utilities and grid stakeholders helping to model the impacts of increasingly severe extreme weather events against their system. By leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, Rhizome’s platform guides and pinpoints resilience investments and upgrades. As a part of this agreement, Rhizome debuts gridCAVA, a tool designed to bring down the cost of climate vulnerability assessments for municipal and cooperative utilities who typically have fewer resources to perform these activities relative to large investor-owned utilities.
“Vermont Electric Co-op’s proactive approach to resilience is leading the way for their municipality and cooperative utility peers,” ” said Mishal Thadani, co-founder and CEO of Rhizome.
“Our platform has brought down the cost of running climate models for predictive utility planning, making it easier for smaller utilities such as VEC to prepare ahead of growing extreme weather events. All power providers across the utility landscape deserve tools crafted for their existing resources and expertise to meet and overcome their unique, climate-related challenges.
”The partnership and gridCAVA announcement unveiled today marks the latest advancement in Rhizome's expanding portfolio of climate risk solutions. This development builds upon the successful July 2024 launch of gridFIRM, the company's comprehensive wildfire risk planning system that provides critical tracking of asset failures, fire ignition events and detailed spread and damage assessments.
These sophisticated, data-driven modeling tools empower utilities and stakeholders to gain deeper insights into their risk exposure and strategically prioritize resilience investments and infrastructure upgrades. Both gridCAVA and gridFIRM were built upon Rhizome's foundational technology platform, Aspen—a scalable, cloud-based platform that delivers systems-level modeling of current and future climate risks.
For more information, please visit rhizomedata.com.
