Test and Measurement

AI Inspections Firm Buzz Solutions Raises Capital, Working with NYPA

Dec. 22, 2022

The company recently began working with New York Power Authority.

Buzz Solutions, an AI company focused on making energy infrastructure stable, smart and resilient, today announces it has raised a $3.3 million funding round to continue building its technology that can accurately and efficiently inspect transmission, distribution, and substation infrastructure helping to prevent power outages, wildfires and other dangerous situations.

Led by GoPoint Ventures with participation from MaC Venture Capital, this is the third round of funding for the company.

In addition to power grid inspections, the company is now expanding its offerings to include substations and oil and gas infrastructure. In these new markets, Buzz will provide analytics for pipeline and renewable asset inspections including wind, solar, and hydroelectric, delivering component and anomaly detections, as well as methane leakage detections.

The company has achieved traction with major utilities including their newest utility customer, New York Power Authority (NYPA), the largest state public power organization in the U.S. Buzz has already validated its solution with several other utilities, including with Newfoundland Power, which was a part of the EPRI Incubatenergy Labs program in 2021. Buzz is also working with several notable inspection service providers globally and has partnered with industry leader POWER Engineers.

Buzz Solutions' AI-powered asset inspection platform, PowerAI, is answering the utility industry's call to adopt more innovative technology due to antiquated infrastructure, climate change, regulatory mandates for more frequent inspections, and the overall need for cost-effectiveness:

• First, utility teams currently capture millions of images of power line images via drone, helicopter or aircraft. Analyzing this data has been completely manual for linemen and field technicians with processing time taking six to seven months. During this lag time between image capture and fully analyzed reports, a line could go down, causing a dangerous situation. In contrast, Buzz Solutions is an AI-first approach that provides the most in-depth and granular fault detection very quickly so utility teams can act right away.

• Second, there is a huge drive to invest in vegetation management, which is especially important with climate change. Many utility groups prioritize it as a top budget item. Buzz Solutions can help identify critical "hot spot" areas for tree trimming and removal of unwanted bushes, weeds or branches before issues come up.