As the heat of summer wanes and the Northern Hemisphere turns its gaze toward autumn, a different kind of anticipation grips the electric utility sector in the southeastern United States. The end of summer doesn’t mean a respite from volatile weather for the region. This change in seasons ushers in the peak of Atlantic storm season, and with each passing year the stakes are getting higher.
Last fall, Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida’s west coast. As one of the most intense hurricanes ever recorded over the Gulf of Mexico, it sowed havoc less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the state’s Big Bend region. The effects of these back-to-back systems were felt far and wide across the Southeast. States like Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee experienced catastrophic flooding and landslides. Nearly 12 months later, many impacted communities are still recovering.
Extreme hurricanes are only becoming more common, and the data is sobering. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the proportion of major hurricanes registering at Category 3 or above in the Atlantic has doubled since 1980. Winds are stronger, surges are higher, and rainfall records are frequently shattered. The cost of these storms, measured in lives, dollars, and disruption, continues to climb.
Supercharged weather poses a challenge for electric utilities that is both technical and existential. Recent reports like this one from nonprofit research group Climate Central have found that the United States has experienced a 74% rise in storm-related power outages over the past decade. This surge coincides with the growing intensity of storms themselves.
The nation’s electric grid, which is often said to be one of the largest and most complex machines ever built, was never constructed to withstand the weather extremes of today. As this aging piece of infrastructure faces mounting strain, the question isn’t whether it’ll be tested, but how we’ll prepare and respond when it is.
Redefining Storm Readiness and Response
Today’s utilities are being confronted with orchestrating a reliable and resilient grid in the face of weather that is increasingly severe. In these moments, grid operators frequently find themselves dealing with challenges that go beyond typical day-to-day operations. This can be the reality for those that have the potential to be impacted during the Atlantic hurricane season, which lasts from June to the end of November. That’s one reason why GE Vernova’s Grid Software business, which is trusted by global utilities to orchestrate a more sustainable energy grid and help deliver reliable and affordable electricity to their customers, has a team dedicated to protecting and supporting utility customers during these storms.
The team, which is focused on coordinated storm preparedness and rapid response, aims to provide the experienced support and specialized knowledge utilities need when facing these high-pressure weather situations. Kelly Harred, who leads the team as the business’s global head of client experience and success, notes, “Our goal is for our utility customers on the front lines to know they’re not alone, that they can depend on GE Vernova to go above and beyond.”
At the heart of this team is GE Vernova’s commitment to empathy and urgency. When a developing system threatens to make landfall, the team’s critical response members are activated. This group of some 40 employees, comprising power systems experts, software engineers, solution architects, and the dedicated success and service delivery team that supports potentially impacted utility customers, stands ready to triage and tackle customer issues with speed and precision.
“We reach out to our [utility] customers as soon as we know they’re in the path of a developing storm,” says Customer Success Manager Shawn Peterson. The analogy is apt: When minutes matter and every decision counts, the team mobilizes early, utilizing deep expertise to help utilities prepare for, withstand, and recover from the weather conditions headed their way.
Coordinating in Real Time
Inside GE Vernova’s Grid Software business, the pulse of this team beats through a dedicated communication channel. It’s in this channel that on-staff meteorologist Greg Wassel provides regular updates on Atlantic storm conditions every Monday. When the threat level rises, so does the frequency of his real-time briefings. This helps ensure that key stakeholders, from software engineers to customer success managers, are aware of the evolving situation.
This dedicated communication channel connects to a digital command center containing what the team may need: a Customer Success Manager Playbook for proactive engagement, an Emergency Response Team roster, customer-specific solution architecture, health check information, and outage map links for all storm-impacted clients. This centralized resource enables faster issue resolution and informed decision-making during critical situations.
Software: The Brains of the Grid
Walk into any electric utility control center during a severe weather event and it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the walls of flickering displays showing a plethora of real-time data feeds. Grid software can help operators make sense of this data so they can effectively and efficiently orchestrate grid activity, from deploying field crews to ensuring transmission lines are de-energized so that work to repair grid damage and restore power can be done safely. If the switches, transformers, and electrical lines are the grid’s body, then software is its brain. This digital technology supports a quicker and safer response.
Before grid software, this choreography was far more manual. “There was a giant paper map on the wall,” one engineer recalls. “Calls would come in, and operators would triangulate outages with colored pins and dispatch repair trucks based on best guesses.” Today, this type of software is changing the game. A good example is GE Vernova’s GridOS, a software portfolio to orchestrate the complexity of the modern grid while driving reliability and resilience, even in the face of increasing storm threats.
GridOS utilizes technology like artificial intelligence (AI) to help utilities better prepare for and respond to disruptions. Algorithms sift through data in real time, identifying vegetation recommended to be trimmed ahead of a storm, mapping outages, prioritizing repairs, and guiding field crews to where they’re needed the most with pinpoint accuracy.
“The highest peaks of stress come when the storm first hits and about eight hours later, when restoration begins,” says Kory Nelson, part of the team. This is when utilities pivot from survival to recovery, sending trucks and drones along power lines, assessing damage, and coordinating the work of field crews. These crews, often assembled through a practice known as mutual assistance, converge from all around the country, united by purpose and urgency. In these moments, it is key to provide clarity amid the storm’s noise.
But digital technology is only part of the story. “At the end of the day, for our customers, these are their communities. These storms are often stress-intensive times for them,” Peterson notes. The storm preparedness and rapid-response team is as much about emotional support as it is technical expertise. “It’s not just about helping operators orchestrate an increasingly complex grid,” says Peterson. “It’s also about helping them deal with the immense pressure that comes along with defending their neighbors’ livelihoods.”
Chasing Continuous Improvement
The work isn’t over when the skies clear. After every severe weather event, the critical response team gathers to study grid and outage data, review responses, and conduct postmortems to extract best practices for a world in which the only constant is change.
“Planning ahead is essential, but we also know we have to stay alert and be ready to respond if conditions change,” Peterson explains. “It’s no longer just about tracking those more traditional hurricanes that swoop in off the eastern Atlantic. Today’s storms can intensify quickly to reach Category 3 or above in the Gulf. That’s what happened with Hurricane Milton last year, and we had hours to adjust our response. That’s why we’re always evaluating how we can improve and adapt for whatever the next storm might throw our way.”
This relentless pursuit of continuous improvement, of evolving alongside the increasing threats faced by utilities today, is a hallmark of GE Vernova’s approach.
Reimagining Resilience
The GE Vernova Atlantic storm team is strategically redefining what it means to be a trusted collaborator in an era of weather volatility. In the face of storms that are both more frequent and more unpredictable, utilities need technology suppliers they can trust to provide the expertise and experience to anticipate challenges, mobilize early, and deliver rapid support to minimize disruption and bolster resiliency.
“This team feels a huge sense of pride in the work they do to show up for the people behind the grid,” says Harred. “For us at GE Vernova, being a collaborator that can truly be depended on means showing up, listening, and doing our part to help keep the lights on when it matters most.”
Additional reporting by Chris Norris