As wildfire risk increases across the Northeast, National Grid is taking action to improve resilience for its customers and communities. The company announced a collaboration with Rhizome, a climate resilience planning platform, to deploy advanced AI technology that identifies and prevents wildfire risks across its electric transmission and distribution networks in Massachusetts, New York, and the United Kingdom.

Rhizome's gridFIRM platform, launched in July 2024, quantifies long-term risks of utility asset-related wildfires. By empowering utilities to mitigate these threats cost-effectively, gridFIRM helps safeguard both reliability and affordability for customers.

"This partnership aligns perfectly with National Grid's strategic approach to risk management, system resilience, and bill affordability. We're committed to ensuring our system is not only efficient and reliable, but safe and resilient for each of the millions of customers depending on us for power," said Casey Kirkpatrick, Director of Strategic Engineering, National Grid. "This groundbreaking new tool will allow us to pinpoint and address risks within our transmission and distribution systems while minimizing costs for customers."

"As we've seen in both the data and the destruction in recent years, wildfire risk is not a regional problem but an increasingly global one," said Mishal Thadani, Co-founder and CEO, Rhizome. "Today's partnership with National Grid is a significant step forward in our mission to shield society from the effects of climate change through intelligent planning. We're proud to assist National Grid with this proactive work."

The implementation of Rhizome's gridFIRM platform across National Grid's service territories will enable the company to:

• Identify high-risk areas where utility assets could potentially ignite wildfires
• Quantify and prioritize wildfire risks across transmission and distribution networks
• Develop cost-effective, multi-value wildfire prevention and response strategies
• Enhance overall grid resilience planning capabilities

Wildfire risk, once considered primarily a West Coast concern in the United States, is increasingly affecting the Northeast. In 2024 alone, New York and Massachusetts experienced a total of 2626 wildfires, more than twice the number of wildfires in the previous year. The health and safety risks, combined with the financial implications of this increasingly geographically diverse trend, make proper resilience planning and preparedness a critical priority for National Grid and all utility stakeholders.

Today's partnership reinforces National Grid's work as a forward-looking industry leader in resilience and preparedness planning for risks to energy users and utilities.

National Grid continues to invest in innovative technologies and data-driven approaches to address evolving challenges. Earlier this year, National Grid Partners, the venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid, announced it will invest $100 million in AI technologies and startups advancing the future of energy, building upon the $150 million already invested.