Gridware’s Smart Sensors

How Gridware is Innovating the Energy and Grid Space

With the increased adoption of renewables and growing threats from natural disasters, our power grid faces more pressure than ever. Gridware, a cutting-edge energy company, is stepping up to address these challenges.

Gridware's smart sensors enable utility companies to instantly detect and resolve outages quickly while also preventing future disruptions. As the demand for a reliable and resilient grid continues to rise, Gridware is rapidly expanding its team to meet this need. Climate People is helping them onboard software engineers, a technical recruiter, electrical design engineers, and data engineers by the end of the calendar year to ensure their pivotal product reaches more utilities.

Here’s a deeper look at the problems Gridware is solving with its first-of-a-kind solution.

About Gridware:

The power grid is the backbone of our modern society, but it’s also fragile. When the grid is compromised, everything grinds to a halt, and the consequences can be dire: wildfires burn, land is destroyed, property is damaged, progress stops, etc.

Gridware builds sensors that help utility companies address these outages and act quickly. As we all know, time is of the essence when dealing with power outages. The need for reliable power will only increase. Gridware operates at the intersection of rapid response to disasters and data-backed insights that enhance resiliency, helping utilities act proactively.

Gridware’s founder, Tim Barat, began his career as a journeyman linesman in Australia. During the Black Saturday wildfires in 2009, one of Australia’s most catastrophic bushfire disasters, he witnessed firsthand the absolute devastation that grid failure can cause. Determined to find a solution, Tim left Australia and moved to the U.S. to study at Berkeley, where he met his two co-founders—Hall Chen and Abdulrahman Bin Omar—and laid the foundation for Gridware.

Tim’s hands-on experience in the field gave him unique insights into the deep-rooted issues utilities face. He didn’t develop the hammer in search of a nail—he lived through the problem and built Gridware as the solution.

Problem:

Utility companies face a growing challenge: they lack visibility into what’s happening across the grid. Overcrowding, outages, and overloading aren’t the core problems—they’re symptoms of not having a full-scale picture of our grid. As demand for electricity grows, particularly with the rise of electrification and AI, the consequences of grid failure can be devastating, from wildfires to blackouts. Without real-time data, utility companies can’t respond quickly enough to natural disasters or systemic faults.

Solution:

Gridware’s groundbreaking solution and data-backed insights offer utility companies the visibility they've never had. Their hardware, essentially a smart sensor attached to utility poles, allows utility companies to pinpoint the exact location of an outage without the need for manual inspection. Their product operates independently of the grid, using solar power to stay online during power outages, and communicates in remote areas through a combination of device-to-device, cellular, and satellite communications.

To build Gridware, Tim built his own fully operational mini-grid at Berkeley, running 35 million hours of tests to develop the algorithms that power the product today. This data is the key to future grid innovation. To improve, you need to fully understand the problem—and Gridware’s insights make that possible.

Impact:

Gridware isn’t just about response—it’s about prevention. Their sensors enable utilities to detect problems before they escalate, reducing the risk of disasters like wildfires.

Net Zero Insights gives Gridware a 56% sustainability/impact score, placing it in the upper tier of companies driving significant CO2e reduction potential. With their technology, Gridware is well-positioned and funded to create real-world impact for both people and the planet.

Examples:

Gridware has proven its ability to enable utilities to respond rapidly to wildfires. When a wildfire affects the grid, their sensors detect the disruption’s exact location, allowing utility companies to dispatch a team to resolve the problem in minutes.

But their impact goes beyond wildfires. Gridware’s solution can handle everything from downed trees to bird interference and other grid-related disruptions.

A key differentiator for Gridware is that their technology operates independently of grid voltage, which sets them apart from other technologies that require fault current.. For example, after Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina, the grid couldn’t be turned back on until every inch of power lines was inspected manually. With Gridware’s system in place, this painstaking process could be streamlined, allowing teams to focus on problem areas and restore power faster.

One-Minute Call to Action:

The future of the grid is changing—and Gridware is leading the “charge.” Utility companies now have the opportunity to be proactive, ensuring we have a resilient and optimized power system that can handle the growing demand for clean energy.

Interested in being part of a rapidly growing team driving real-world impact? Learn more about Gridware and check out their open roles here!