NT's Power and Water maps out huge core IT upgrade

The Northern Territory’s government-owned utility Power and Water hopes to invest more than $70 million on its ICT systems between 2024 and 2029.

The company outlined the plan in a 2024-2029 regulatory proposal [pdf], which requires  approval by the Australian Energy Regulator.

The proposal reveals a long history of under-investment in core systems, with Power and Water saying many are "already past their useful life and are no longer supported or fit-for-purpose."

"The context of this occurring during a nationwide energy transition heightens the need for forward thinking and urgent investment," it wrote.

Power and Water’s Oracle-based financial management system, for example, is 20 years old.

“By bringing Oracle up to contemporary standards, we can improve the efficiency of financial processes across the Power and Water business, and enhance our investment decision making," the utility said.

The company’s asset management system also needs replacement.

"Our core asset management system, Maximo, is functionally obsolete,” the proposal states.

“We will therefore upgrade Maximo and standardise our asset management practices across the business.

"This will allow us to move more smoothly to proactive, data-driven asset management, which will help us optimise our asset management expenditure.”

The Maximo upgrade is also vital to “improvements to our work planning, scheduling and close out processes,” Power and Water said, to meet increasing program delivery “as we replace and refurbish our aging asset base.”

The regulatory proposal said the utility’s ICT program will grow by $31.8 million to implement the required upgrades.

Total ICT capex from 2024-2029 is forecast to be $70.7 million, more than $20 million above the 2019-2024 ICT capex.

Other projects have already commenced, Power and Water said.

“We have already commenced implementing new billing, call centre, and metering systems," it said.

The transition to renewable energy is also impacting on Power and Water’s spend. 

The regulatory proposal noted that between 2024 and 2029, the company will “commence implementing technical solutions and start making the network and ICT investments to facilitate renewables and set our network up to support new technologies and decarbonisation for the decades that follow. 

“During the 2024- 29 regulatory period we estimate we will spend $13.2 million of capex, and $14.1 million of opex on future network initiatives," it added.