Overstory

Overstory is a satellite vegetation intelligence tool designed to analyze vegetation globally. According to the vendor, the main purpose of Overstory is to prevent wildfires and power outages while enabling smarter infrastructure management and safer communities. This solution caters to a range of industries and professions, including electric utilities, vegetation management professionals, arborists, forestry professionals, and utility executives. Overstory provides insights and recommendations for effective vegetation management.

Key Features

Scalable: Overstory offers a cost-effective solution for scanning the entire territory of electric utilities, providing a comprehensive understanding of vegetation risks across the network. According to the vendor, it allows utilities to scale their local expertise and identify pressing vegetation issues.

Accurate: Overstory's algorithms, developed in collaboration with arborists and forestry professionals, deliver insights to ensure field visits are focused on critical concerns. It provides tree-level data on vegetation species, health, height, and proximity to power lines for risk-based planning, according to the vendor.

Actionable: Overstory delivers tree-level data on vegetation species, health, height, and proximity to power lines, enabling risk-based planning and decision-making. It pinpoints grow-in and fall-in risks, performs pruning verification, and provides post-work audits to ensure compliance with specified standards, according to the vendor.

Risks and Prioritization: Overstory helps utilities transition to a risk-based pruning plan by providing a comprehensive risk prioritization report. It includes vital information such as tree detection, species identification, height, growth rate, proximity to power lines, tree vitality, insect infestations, grow-in risks, fall-in risks, outage prediction, wildfire mitigation plan support, and PSPS (Public Safety Power Shutoff) information support, according to the vendor.

Technology: Overstory utilizes machine learning algorithms to interpret satellite imagery and climate data, extracting insights about trees and shrubs. These algorithms are trained with ground measurements from arborists, forestry professionals, and the Overstory data repository. The fusion of data with diverse spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution allows for actionable predictive insights, according to the vendor.

Integration: Overstory seamlessly integrates with existing tools and utility workflows, providing secure access to insights via the Overstory platform. It can also extract additional value from other customer data sources, such as LiDAR, enhancing the overall utility management capabilities, according to the vendor.

Visibility and Optimization: Overstory provides visibility, risk analysis, and optimization recommendations for vegetation management throughout the service territory. It empowers utilities to prioritize vegetation management based on the specific risks and characteristics of their territory, leading to more efficient and effective operations, according to the vendor.

Prevention of Wildfires and Power Outages: Overstory plays a role in preventing wildfires and power outages by analyzing vegetation globally. Its insights enable proactive measures to mitigate risks and ensure the safety and reliability of power infrastructure, according to the vendor.

Expert Collaboration: Overstory's development in partnership with arborists and forestry professionals on transmission and distribution right-of-way worldwide ensures that the tool is built on expert knowledge and industry best practices, according to the vendor.

Data-driven Decision Making: Overstory empowers utilities and vegetation management professionals to make data-driven decisions by providing accurate and actionable information. This enables them to optimize resources, reduce costs, and enhance the overall management of vegetation and associated risks, according to the vendor.