For critical industries, extreme weather brings extreme, even existential, risks. Take electric utilities as an example. Weather drives roughly 80% of major US power outages, and utility failures during Winter Storm Elliott, Hurricane Ida, and Hurricane Beryl have resulted in regulatory investigations, rejected rate cases, and multi-year lawsuits. Wildfire adds another layer: settlements and jury decisions in California, Oregon, and Hawaii have cost utilities billions. As the frequency of extreme events increases, utilities are responding. For example, according to an analysis by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Berkshire Hathaway Energy is incresing its wildfire mitigation capital spending 33% between 2022 and 2027, to nearly $800M next year. Storm hardening and restoration budgets are climbing just as fast, as utilities in the Southeast and Gulf Coast plan for more frequent winter storms and hurricanes.

The proliferation of new tools like innovative sensors and AI-powered forecasts has offered hope that companies can better predict the severe and extreme weather coming their way. However, having these tools isn't enough. To be effective, companies must translate data and forecasts into critical operational decisions. 

OnPeak Intelligence helps utilities, governments, and other critical industries make better operational decisions before and during severe and extreme weather events. The platform ingests and integrates multiple weather forecasts and sensor observations, transforms them into high-resolution, probabilistic weather intelligence, and translates that intelligence into business risk. Customers are supported by an expert-in-the-loop who helps them confidently act on their most critical, time-sensitive decisions.

Extreme weather and wildfire drive immensely consequential decisions for utilities and critical industries

• Severe and extreme events, including convective storms, downslope high wind events, winter storms, extreme heat, and hurricanes, can bring life-threatening and business-altering risks to critical industries. 

• The response of critical industries impacts their ability to provide their core services and to do so cost-effectively. 

• For utilities, critical decisions include when to proactively cut customers’ power during a Public Safety Power Shutoff, where to stage overtime crews, and when to call on expensive mutual assistance resources. 

• Getting these decisions right can reduce outages and save money and lives. Getting them wrong can lead to unnecessary costs, long outages, regulatory backlash, and criminal investigations.

Utilities and critical industries have more forecasts and data than ever, but lack a way to turn them into decisions

• Operations teams and in-house meteorologists have access to more data and more sophisticated forecasts than ever before. But because those data sources and forecasts are disconnected, teams must manually try to make sense of dozens of inputs before making a best-guess decision.

• Without sophisticated tooling, teams also miss opportunities to use various data inputs to improve a forecast’s spatial resolution, or how well it captures local variations caused by local topography and weather feedback loops. What ultimately drives outcomes is often not the average weather across a 3 km square but the conditions at the exact location of an asset.

• Seasonal signals add to the pile. This winter’s El Niño shifts the odds toward a stormier season across the southern US, but it can’t tell a utility which feeders are at risk next Tuesday or where to stage crews. Turning those signals into specific, local decisions is the gap OnPeak closes.

OnPeak turns forecasts into confident operational decisions

• OnPeak doesn't sell a single forecast. Instead, it helps customers bring all of their forecasts and data sources together to form a probabilistic understanding of risk. 

• OnPeak’s tooling translates these inputs into rapid, high-resolution probabilistic forecasts around key assets. It then goes a step further by creating business risk forecasts that streamline communication between meteorologists and operational teams. This allows final decision makers to act against their own risk thresholds.

• Because OnPeak isn't selling its own forecasts or sensors, it can provide an unbiased offering that helps customers maximize all of the tools at their disposal. 

OnPeak’s leaders have lived these pain points and spent their careers developing solutions

• OnPeak’s founding team brings a unique blend of scientific credibility, utility operational experience, and venture-backed startup chops.

• Co-founder and CEO Kevin Clifford spent seven years as a meteorologist for PG&E, rising to Expert Meteorologist and Product Manager. Eager to grow his experience in product leadership, Kevin got his MBA from UC Berkeley and held Product Manager roles at AMS and Shell. He then co-founded Equilibrium Energy, where he was Head of Product for 5 years.

• Co-founder and CTO Tyler McCandless built his career at the intersection of meteorology, data science, and energy. Since graduating with a PhD in meteorology from Penn State University, Tyler has held roles at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Ascend Analytics, E Source, Catalyze, Tomorrow.io, and Equilibrium Energy.

Powerhouse Ventures is proud to lead OnPeak Intelligence's $3M pre-seed round, with participation from Blackhorn Ventures. We look forward to working with Co-founder and CEO Kevin Clifford, Co-founder and CTO Tyler McCandless, and the entire OnPeak team to help utilities and other critical industries make confident decisions in the face of extreme weather.