AI power grid modeling platform Neara raises $31 million

Neara, an AI-powered predictive grid modeling software platform for critical infrastructure, announced a $31 million Series C funding round.

Neara said the funding will accelerate its global operations across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia Pacific as the company continues to focus on the challenges of energy resilience and infrastructure modernisation. The company will also expand its modeling and simulation capabilities to additional critical infrastructure sectors, including telecommunications and public transportation.

Neara’s 3D digital modeling technology is meant to enable utilities to adopt a more proactive approach to network optimisation with simulations that unveil safety and reliability risks and identify effective remediation actions. Neara said its utility partners, including CenterPoint Energy and Southern California Edison in the US, perform critical analyses in just hours and days that would otherwise take months or years.

Additionally, Neara’s network-wide simulations are intended to help utilities gain regulatory support by demonstrating how proposed upgrades, such as wind-resistant poles and flood-resilient network design, could improve reliability and resiliency.

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CenterPoint Energy partnered with Neara following 2024’s Hurricane Beryl to forecast, measure, and deliver network improvements. Already, CenterPoint said it has accelerated critical field insight analysis, reducing processes that historically took a year and a half to just three hours with Neara.

Neara’s AI grid modeling technology will also support CenterPoint’s ongoing efforts to address higher-risk vegetation along power lines, as well as identify critical equipment upgrades, including pole replacements or reinforcements, quickly and efficiently. Additionally, Neara’s predictive technology will help CenterPoint prioritize specific assets and locations where grid hardening improvements will help optimize system-wide benefits. As targeted system upgrades are completed, CenterPoint will be able to quantify performance increases at the individual asset level and forecast, deliver, and measure resilience improvements.

Southern California Edison counts on Neara’s technology to address problematic vegetation 50% faster in their wildfire-prone region.

The investment builds on Neara’s last funding round in September of 2023. Since then, the company said it has focused on scaling its presence in the United States and Europe. Globally, Neara said it has modeled over 1.5 million square miles of electricity infrastructure and 12 million infrastructure assets.

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In a case study, Neara detailed how Australian utility SA Power Networks used its platform to assess network damage and risk through digital flood impact modeling during the River Murray flood, which occurred between November 2022 and February 2023 and was the third-highest flood ever recorded in South Australia.

During the flood, 400 miles of powerline and around 4,000 power poles were damaged by floodwater. By utilising Neara’s AI-powered modeling capabilities, SA Power Networks completed a report in fifteen minutes analyzing 21,000 powerline spans within the flood-impacted area. Neara argues this process would have taken “months” to complete utilising manual business systems and resources.

The 3D modeling obtained allowed SA Power Networks to model impacts on electricity distribution network assets at various flood levels and to predict where and when powerlines would breach clearances or be inundated requiring electricity disconnection, Neara said. Now that the river levels returned to normal, the modeling has since been used to assist in planning reconnection of supply along the river.

“By monitoring water and clearance levels daily, SA Power Networks was able to leave power on for longer for many customers along the river as the floodwaters rose and also restore power more quickly as water receded,” said SA Power Networks general manager, Network Management, Doug Schmidt.

Originally published by Sean Wolfe on power-grid.com