Grid
Mishal Thadani is the CEO and co-founder of Rhizome, a climate resilience software company that helps electric utilities quantify climate and wildfire risk to T&D infrastructure and prioritize capital investments accordingly. Mish spent over a decade in the energy sector at BP Wind Energy, Pattern Energy, and Direct Energy before becoming VP of Strategy and Policy at Urbint (acquired by Itron), where he helped utilities build AI-driven investment cases and defend them before state regulators. He started Rhizome after years of watching utilities try to justify resilience capex to regulators without a rigorous way to do it. Mish is a recipient of Public Utilities Fortnightly’s 40 Under 40 and holds a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Rice University.
The electric grid is facing an absolute tidal wave of new demand from massive data centers and rapid electrification. To keep the lights on and power our future, the industry is completely rewriting the rules of grid modernization.
This month, PUF brings you four innovators who are changing the game from the digital perimeter to the physical edge. We kick things off with Dragos to look at how a rock-solid cybersecurity baseline protects our most automated systems. Next, Rhizome takes us into the world of artificial intelligence to predict macro climate risks before they strike.
Then, TS Conductor drops some serious materials science to show how new wires can double line capacity on existing towers. After that, Osmose shows how to save millions by giving older poles a full second lifespan. Get ready to meet the teams reshaping the modern power grid.
PUF: We established that a secure network perimeter represents the mandatory digital baseline for a modern utility system. Once that network parameter is secure, the core question shifts to where the company should deploy its capital.