One uncertain circuit, and an entire valley without power.
Why AWS Console exists, and what we believe every utility owes the customers caught inside a shutoff boundary.
A decade in grid reliability, watching precision get sacrificed to caution.
Silas Thorncroft spent ten years in grid reliability engineering at a Western utility, building the operational procedures that kept the system running safely through increasingly severe fire seasons. He believed in Public Safety Power Shutoffs as a genuine, necessary tool — utility equipment has caused real, devastating wildfires, and cutting power during extreme conditions is sometimes the only responsible choice.
A shutoff boundary drawn wider than the actual risk.
During a red flag event, he watched the utility de-energize a broad, multi-circuit area because its weather station network — a handful of sensors spread across a huge service territory — couldn't distinguish the one genuinely dangerous segment from the many calmer miles around it. Families lost power for days. Small businesses lost refrigerated inventory. None of it was unreasonable given the data available. All of it could have been narrower with better data.
He founded AWS Console in 2017 on a simple premise: a utility shouldn't have to choose between under-protecting the public and over-shutting-off innocent customers. Dense enough weather data lets it do both — protect precisely, and restore precisely.
AWS stands for Automated Weather Station. The console is where it all comes together.
We build and maintain the physical station networks, and we build the software console utility operators actually use to see circuit-level conditions in real time. Neither half works without the other — a dense station network with no usable interface is as useless as a beautiful dashboard fed by too few sensors.
Four things that haven't changed since 2017.
Precision protects the public and the customer.
A narrower, better-informed shutoff still prevents the fire. It just doesn't take out the neighborhood three miles away that was never actually at risk.
A station that isn't maintained is a false sense of coverage.
Remote sensors drift, get damaged by the same weather they're meant to monitor, and lose calibration. We treat ongoing maintenance as core to the service, not an afterthought.
We support the decision. We don't make it.
The console gives utility operators better data and clearer visualization. The actual PSPS decision, and the responsibility that comes with it, stays with the utility.
Density is the whole strategy.
We'd rather deploy more, simpler stations across a service territory than fewer, more elaborate ones — coverage gaps are the actual risk, not sensor sophistication.
Meet the team applying this daily: Our Team, or see exactly how an engagement starts on the How It Works page.