Hydro Tasmania's IT evolution is supporting a clean energy future

Revolutionizing IT strategy to support a clean energy future

Located even further “down under,” the breathtaking island of Tasmania punches above its weight in many ways. Already boasting a nationally competitive food and wine scene, gorgeous white-sand beaches, and a vibrant cultural scene, this small Australian island state has set its sights even higher.

Tasmania is entering what it describes as a “new era of hydro power,” building on the state’s 100-year hydro legacy. It is not only helping meet the island’s growing energy demands but also supporting Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) in its transition to renewables.

More on Hydro Tasmania

Tasmania is a hydro power pioneer, with its first facilities built over a century ago. Today, Hydro Tasmania is Australia’s largest renewable energy provider, generating around 9,000 gigawatt hours of power every year. It operates 30 power stations across 6 natural water catchments, enough to supply 900,000 homes with clean power.

The business also incorporates international consulting firm Entura and Momentum Energy, which retails energy on mainland Australia. Employing more than 1,300 people, this government-owned enterprise has a proud history and significant future opportunities to support Tasmanian and Australian climate and economic objectives.

Like many countries around the world, Australia has a big challenge ahead. Climate change is accelerating the need to reduce emissions, which means reducing the country’s reliance on fossil fuels for power.

Tasmania stands ready to play a much greater role in delivering more clean, reliable, and affordable energy to the NEM. The state has significant potential in the future development of wind and hydropower, coupled with more transmission and interconnection of electricity. These developments are anticipated to drive billions of dollars in investment and create thousands of jobs in Tasmania, as well as deliver energy security and the lowest possible power prices for Tasmanians.

Hydro Tasmania’s contribution to a clean energy future is two major construction projects. The first is the redevelopment of the 85-year-old Tarraleah Hydro Scheme to double capacity and allow generation “at the flick of a switch.” The second is pumped hydro at Lake Cethana to store valuable electrons for when the company needs it most.

The company is also investing to optimize and modernize assets across its network.

It’s a big strategic vision, and Hydro Tasmania needs a resilient IT team capable of supporting their technology infrastructure.

In late 2022, Steve Wilson joined the team as Head of IT.

“Hydro Tasmania wasn’t necessarily looking for an IT person. They were looking for a leader to bring the people, strategy, risk elements, and financial governance for a new brand of IT within the organization,” reflected Wilson. “I had worked on large IT projects during my career, but I had not actually worked as a traditional IT professional for most of my career in finance – so it was a different step for me, but an exciting opportunity.”

Finding expert guidance on the long road to success

What Wilson stepped into was an IT team that desperately wanted strategic operational direction. The mandate from executive leadership was clear: deliver a resilient and innovative IT capability that supports the organization’s big change agenda.

Wilson was determined to hit the ground running. He immediately turned to IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group for external support and expertise. As the new Head of IT, his first port of call was Info-Tech’s vast library of best-practice IT research, tools, and training.

“One of the biggest things early on was the opportunity to go into the Info-Tech portal and explore what was there. I was impressed by the simplicity of it all – here’s the strategy, here are some key IT functionalities. It was very easy to consume, very easy to understand.”
– Steve Wilson, Head of IT, Hydro Tasmania

Looking under the hood with Info-Tech Diagnostics

To build a high-performing IT leadership team that was ready to evolve, Wilson needed to gauge the IT function’s status. He used Info-Tech’s IT Management and Governance Diagnostic program to assess their capabilities and limitations across core IT processes. To complement the work being done inside the team, he also employed the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic to assess internal stakeholder satisfaction with IT performance.

These two diagnostic programs gave the team the data they needed to drive the organization forward and celebrate the excellent results our service desk team achieved.

“The Info-Tech diagnostics had a significant impact for our Executive General Manager Finance and our CEO, not only helping us identify how good or bad things were but also the future direction we needed to go in.”
– Steve Wilson, Head of IT, Hydro Tasmania

Breathing new life into IT strategy

Building on the success of the diagnostics in identifying growth opportunities, Hydro Tasmania engaged in an Info-Tech IT strategy workshop to review and update their IT strategy and implementation of the Plan Build Run functional model. “No one had any visibility into the existing strategy, and everyone acknowledged they were working in silos. They didn’t understand the strategy or feel connected to it,” reported Wilson.

The team had already participated in a vendor management workshop with Info-Tech and had seen the value of a week-long facilitated session:

“Using their workshop model, Info-Tech experts sat with us over a five-day period, really developing the work, the report, and the recommendations, and the implementation of that was significant.”
– Steve Wilson, Head of IT, Hydro Tasmania

The new, collaboratively-developed IT strategy, recently approved by the Hydro Tasmania Board, united the team on a single journey and provided IT leadership with the next steps for realizing the lofty goals of the IT evolution. “Although the work was ticking along, we realized our operating model was not going to bring the strategy to life, so Plan Build Run was implemented.”

Learning to say "no" to "yes"

To support the new strategy, the IT leadership team redesigned everything from planning, architecture, and governance to project delivery. “One of the most significant initiatives was the project intake, prioritization, and resourcing work that we did with Info-Tech. It enabled significant transparency and engagement across the business with the work we do,” Wilson reflected.

From this work came Hydro Tasmania’s Technology Governance Committee, dedicated to prioritizing and aligning goals for IT initiatives each month. “It's only been up and running for about six months, so it’s going take time to work through our maturity to where we need to go,” hedged Wilson, while also noting the strides it has made already: “For the first time, we’re developing a three-to-five-year asset-infrastructure financial plan for IT as we grow through this process.”

The future of an organization is its people

Even as the strategy and operating model continue to mature, Wilson’s focus remains on the people. “It’s all about bringing the people along for the journey,” he noted. “Leaders are always learning, always having conversations – they’re always serving to build the next generation of leaders to come through.”

Wilson sees that same focus in his partnership with Info-Tech: “I absolutely value the mentorship that Info-Tech provides – it really feels like they’re a very people-focused organization. How do we make sure our people and leaders wholeheartedly believe in what we’re doing to improve IT? The cornerstone of our success is our continuing partnership with Info-Tech.”

Never happy staying still for too long, Wilson is already looking forward to what may soon be technologically possible and what will be needed to adopt and integrate those advancements: “We’re working on the things that are vitally important, so we’ll be in a position to consider the next wave of innovation that will help support Tasmania and Australia’s renewable energy future.”