Heat and drought are straining the power system at nearly every point on the continent, all at once. Tens of thousands are already working to solve it — there is one slice where we can help. We offered it for the summer 2026 season, to any operator that asked.
Note: The offer ran during summer 2026.
In this situation we are not bringing a brochure — we are bringing something concrete.
For any European network operator that asked — and it only took an email — we would, over the summer season and free of charge, screen the vegetation drought-stress along your network: where drying and vegetation decline are measurable in the vicinity of the lines.
What it takes. In practice, just your network path — a simple line layer. We bring the vegetation side, from a continuously updated satellite time series; your network data stays confidential.
What it gives — and what it doesn't. This is a screening, an early signal — not the calibrated, height-based, class-rated production system (that is the world of geometry: LiDAR, corridor, intervention package). This is a different dimension: the condition and dryness of the vegetation, on a relative scale. Geometric precision comes later, separately, when it gets serious.
The frame. We worked at full effort, but clearly for the summer season, subject to demand, and as our capacity allows — one representative stretch per network. Generous, but sustainable.
This summer has shown, plainly, how tightly the power system is now tied to the weather. Western Europe has recorded its warmest June in the modern record, and the heat is not over: a further heat dome has built past 40 °C into August across the continent. The human cost is real — the World Health Organization has associated well over a thousand excess deaths with the heat since late June. That deserves to be stated plainly.
The system took the rest all at once. As the heat held, the great rivers fell — the Rhine and the Danube dropped to historic lows — and river-cooled plants ran into their limits: from France to Hungary's Paks, reactors were curtailed or shut down because the cooling water was too low or too warm. Power prices touched 2022-crisis levels, and a wildfire near a British nuclear station triggered a high alert. These are not separate events: peak demand, lost generation and fire danger all crest in the same window.
Most of that map is beyond any one company. But there is one point where the climate meets the distribution network directly and physically: the vegetation along the lines. The same heat and drought that lower the rivers dry the trees beside the conductors into fuel and stress them toward failure — right when the network is already at peak load.
For this risk, most operators today read a single signal: the weather forecast. It describes the air over a region — not the actual state of the vegetation on a given span. There is a second, independent signal: vegetation drought-stress is directly measurable from a satellite time series, often weeks before it would show on a foot patrol. It does not replace the forecast — it complements it.
"Two independent readings beat one."
A heatwave cannot be prevented — but a fire can be prepared for. And in a water-scarce summer, when the water to fight one is itself scarce, seeing the risk early matters more, not less. What can be measured can be watched. The discipline is simply to keep watching, continuously — through a season that, as of 1 August 2026, was not yet over.
Facts reflect reporting as of 1 August 2026.
