Startup Series: Rhizome’s Resilience Planning for Utilities

Mish Thadani is the CEO and Co-founder of Rhizome. Rhizome helps utilities plan for resilience. It's an AI-powered software platform that helps electric utilities identify vulnerabilities from climate threats to quantify risk and to measure the economic and social benefits of grid enhancing investments. 

In our discussion, we delve into how utilities address vulnerabilities arising from extreme weather and other climate change impacts. We also explore how they balance preventive investments to avoid disaster-related outages with strategies to rapidly recover after incidents. 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:42] Exploring the definition of resilience
• [6:26] Vulnerabilities of utilities to climate and weather extremes
• [10:02] Data-driven balancing of utility investments
• [14:15] Enhancing decision-making in utilities with Rhizome's software
• [16:43] Comparing physical asset and capacity risks
• [18:07] Reconductor technology as a resilience strategy
• [22:53] Regulatory challenges in resilience investments
• [25:50] The impact of proactive resilience investments
• [29:42] Inside look at Rhizome's software platform
• [33:35] Rhizome's market strategy and achievements
• [36:07] Federal initiatives on resilience: expectations and realities
• [39:53] AI in resilience: challenges and opportunities
• [42:34] Where Rhizome needs help

Episode recorded on May 23, 2024 (Published on June 27, 2024)

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant