Regional Energy Network

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Vision

A regional electricity utility needed to modernise the way it planned outages and kept customers informed. Ageing, largely manual processes made it difficult to consistently meet strict regulatory obligations — particularly the requirement to notify vulnerable, life-support customers ahead of any planned interruption — and created safety, compliance and reputational risk across a large and remote service area. Leadership recognised that a step change was required: an automated, end-to-end outage notification capability, integrated across operational and corporate systems, that could scale across the network.

The initiative was ambitious and carried a high risk of failure, spanning multiple vendors, complex operational-technology and IT integration, and significant business change. estrat was engaged to provide the program and project management backbone the undertaking demanded — establishing the delivery approach, governance and controls that would give leadership the confidence to invest and proceed.

Traction

estrat's project manager led the initiative end to end, running it as an Agile program in Azure DevOps. Work was organised into multiple workstreams and discrete work packages, with estrat responsible for platform selection and the execution of each package through to delivery. A disciplined, town-by-town rollout was adopted so that new services were introduced on a risk-off basis, minimising disruption to customers and frontline staff as the transformation was progressively deployed.

Across the program, estrat owned the full spread of project management responsibilities: governance and reporting to senior leaders and executives, issue and risk management, change management, and coordination of the many internal teams, vendors and consultants whose systems had to work together. estrat also led stakeholder communications across operations, customer service and community engagement, and managed the training and onboarding that brought each team onto the new tools and processes. Regular executive engagement kept resourcing, regional communications and governance decisions moving, while the Agile cadence maintained momentum through extensive design, build and testing.

Results

Delivered on time and within budget, the program gave the utility a fully automated outage notification capability and real-time network visibility it had never previously had — a first of its kind in its sector. Manual outreach was replaced by timely, two-way notifications, sharply reducing effort and human error while strengthening compliance and the safety of the utility's most vulnerable customers.

The structure estrat put in place — clear governance, disciplined Agile delivery and a phased, low-risk deployment — was central to steering a complex, multi-vendor transformation to a successful outcome. Stakeholders commended the quality of execution and engagement, and the initiative went on to be recognised as an industry innovation, with other networks now exploring how to follow its lead.

Delivered through close collaboration between the utility's teams and estrat, the program stands as a model for how rigorous program management can turn an ambitious, high-risk vision into a safer, smarter and more responsive service.