Horizon Power delivers reliable energy to remote communities with Dynatrace

Horizon Power plays a vital role in delivering electricity services across 2.3 million square kilometers, covering Australia’s most expansive and remote catchment area. Its strategic vision centers on delivering clean reliable energy solutions for a broad mix of regional customers. This includes some of Australia’s most isolated populations, where powering cooling systems can be a lifeline against soaring temperatures of up to 50°C (122°F). Maintaining service continuity depends on an intricate network of IT systems and applications working in harmony. For Horizon Power, technology isn’t just a support function, it’s a critical enabler of its promise to keep the lights on, protect public safety, and meet obligations.

The energy provider has scaled its digital services, adopting new models like pre-paid smart metering, which allows customers to see their balance in near real-time and make payments more easily. However, these innovative services increased the complexity of Horizon Power’s IT systems. Limited visibility across legacy and modern infrastructure meant issues became more difficult and time-consuming to diagnose and resolve. While support teams were proactive in sending a technician to resolve issues in person, it can take days to travel to remote areas. With availability expectations rising and its IT landscape evolving rapidly, Horizon Power recognized an opportunity to enhance its responsiveness by empowering both IT and business teams with faster observability-driven insights so they can stay ahead of potential issues.

Horizon Power selected Dynatrace Infrastructure Observability and Security Platform to bring greater clarity and control to the company’s increasingly complex IT landscape. As the company operated across a tightly integrated ecosystem of applications, infrastructure, and services, the team needed greater depth and unified, contextual insights than what was being provided by traditional monitoring tools. Dynatrace stood out for its ability to offer full-stack observability and automated root cause analysis. Its advanced visualization capabilities would make it easier for Horizon Power’s teams to explore and understand complex systems at a glance. This would enable IT and business support teams to work from a shared, real-time view and collaborate more effectively across functions.

“Before Dynatrace, we relied on traditional monitoring tools that didn’t give us the depth we needed to solve issues quickly or proactively. We didn’t want to have to wait until customers called us about a problem with our payment systems – our goal was to keep their power on all the time,” comments Mark Roberts, Service Delivery Manager at Horizon Power. “Dynatrace enables us to pinpoint issues faster than ever before. Our IT engineering teams now truly understand the root cause of problems and how critical they are in governing the delivery of power to all the Australians we serve. This means we can more effectively optimize our systems to prevent major issues.”

More reliable power: Dynatrace has given Horizon Power the deep visibility it lacked across its tier-one systems, replacing traditional monitoring tools with a unified platform capable of mapping complex interdependencies in real time. With Dynatrace’s automated root cause analysis and intuitive visualizations, teams can now identify and resolve issues in seconds rather than days. This minimizes customer disruptions, protects revenue, and reduces operational stress on IT teams. Dynatrace also provides real-time insight into the financial impact of outages, enabling the business to prioritize issues based on customer impact and potential cost to the organization.

Faster innovation: The shared visibility through Dynatrace has transformed how Horizon Power’s internal teams collaborate. Instead of reactive issue management, teams now operate in a climate of trust and transparency, where ticket backlogs, and urgent escalations have been replaced by shared accountability. This shift has freed up time and energy to focus on delivering new value and innovation.

Stronger partner collaboration: Dynatrace has enabled Horizon Power to create a more connected and transparent working model with outsourced partners and engineering teams. By providing a unified, visual representation of complex systems, both internal and external teams can see how their actions and systems contribute to the safe delivery of electricity to customers. This shared visibility fosters greater alignment across all contributors, reinforcing Horizon Power’s ability to deliver consistent, high-quality service to regional communities.

“Dynatrace has taken away the constant firefighting and given our teams the space to focus on what they do best: innovation,” comments Roberts. “Dynatrace isn’t just a product, it’s a partnership. The support we’ve received has been exceptional, from implementation through to fortnightly check-ins, roadmap planning, and continuous improvement. That relationship has made all the difference in helping our teams stay productive and continue delivering safe, reliable power to the remote communities that rely on us.”