Reducing data centre footprint at Horizon Power

A new agreement between Macquarie Cloud Services, Macquarie Telecom and WA’s Horizon Power will transition workloads to a private cloud environment and reduce the state-owned organisation’s data centre footprint.

Horizon Power is responsible for generating, distributing and retailing electricity to more than 44,000 customers over 2.6 million square kilometres in Western Australia, including to mineral and mining sites. Over the last decade, Horizon has integrated solar and wind into its operations.

According to Jeff Campbell, Horizon Power’s Senior Manager Technology, the provider’s decision to move its workloads from on-premises data centres to a private cloud environment was spurred by the desire to bring cleaner services to customers, and the state government’s carbon emissions reduction target of 80% by 2030.

“To achieve the target, we are looking at how to build more digital and IoT-related services and remove the cost and complexity of managing servers, server clusters, storage devices and backup processes,” he said.

“This will ultimately allow us to reduce our data centre footprint and corresponding energy consumption.”

Campbell said Macquarie was selected for its ability to manage Horizon’s operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) environment. Macquarie’s sovereignty and security credentials were also considered, with onshore data storage and maintenance providing assurance from a compliance perspective.

Campbell continued that the partnership will improve efficiency for Horizon Power, supporting the rapid deployment of applications and equipping Western Australia’s regional and remote energy provider with a new set of advanced tools.

“Straight out of the box, Macquarie showed a deep understanding of what we were trying to achieve and how they could work with us to execute our goals,” he said.

“We’re introducing technologies that provide condition-based monitoring, such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR) drones and IoT sensors. This allows us to capture and crunch data so we can make assets more efficient. For instance, we can send field staff only to the assets requiring maintenance or get detailed data to provide better services and products for customers in specific areas.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Oleksiy Mark