Macquarie Telecom and Macquarie Cloud Services have signed a deal with Horizon Power to transition its workloads to a private cloud environment and reduce its data centre footprint. 

Horizon Power, which provides electricity to over 44,000 customers in Western Australia, decided to move its workloads from on-premises data centres to a private cloud environment to bring cleaner services to customers.  

Aside from this, Horizon Power was also moving to adhere to the Western Australian Government’s carbon emissions reduction target of 80 per cent by 2030. 

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“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,” Horizon Power Senior Manager Technology Jeff Campbell said.  

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

Macquarie was selected to hold the company’s data in the cloud as it was able 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. 

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Campbell states that the partnership will improve efficiency for Horizon Power, support the rapid deployment of applications and equip 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… 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.” 

Macquarie Telecom WA State Manager Aaron Tighe expressed his anticipation for the partnership. 

“Power is essential to Australia’s backbone, and it’s never been more important to handle it in a way that balances sustainability, reliability, and affordability,” he said.  

“I’m proud our work with Horizon Power is playing a part in creating better experiences for those in regional WA”. 

Eliza Sayon

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Eliza is a content producer and editor at Public Spectrum. She is an experienced writer on topics related to the government and to the public, as well as stories that uplift and improve the community.

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