How Horizon Power manages DER across isolated microgrids of Western Australia
Overview
Most electricity networks draw resilience from their interconnectedness. When a generator trips or demand spikes, energy flows from adjacent regions to compensate. Horizon Power has no such luxury. The Western Australian utility operates 32 isolated town microgrids in addition to more than one hundred power systems in sparsely populated remote communities, with no connection to the South West Interconnected System.
Some of these communities are accessible only via unsealed outback roads, impassable for months after heavy rain. A routine maintenance call can involve a day-and-a-half drive through the Pilbara or Kimberley. Yet residents in these towns can have desire for the same access to rooftop solar, battery storage, and energy choice as customers in metropolitan areas.
For Horizon Power’s DER Technologies team, managing the intersection of extreme remoteness, growing renewable uptake, and the operational sensitivity of isolated microgrids is not a theoretical challenge; it is the day-to-day reality of running the network.
“As our DER strategy evolved, we needed capabilities that our existing platform simply wasn’t designed to provide. SwitchDin’s Utility Server gave us an off-the-shelf solution that supported battery orchestration and future export limiting and transition to CSIP-AUS, without having to build a new platform ourselves.”
The Challenge: From solar management to full DER orchestration
Horizon Power’s existing DER control platform was purpose-built to manage rooftop solar PV systems. For its time, it performed well; it enabled the utility to grow solar penetration across regional Western Australian towns while maintaining network stability. But the energy landscape was changing faster than the platform could adapt.
Customer demand for battery storage was accelerating. New Australian grid standards, notably the CSIP-AUS protocol, were reshaping the requirements for DER compliance, and Horizon Power’s own strategy, targeting higher renewable penetration and a distributed optimisation model by 2030, demanded a platform with considerably more capability.
Five distinct requirements came into focus:
Battery orchestration and active control of customer-owned storage assets.
Future transition from generation limiting to export and generation limiting; a meaningfully better outcome for solar customers.
Full alignment with CSIP-AUS industry standards.
Extensibility to support future DER technologies, including electric vehicles and flexible loads.
A commercially viable path that avoids the cost and risk of building a proprietary system in-house.
“We looked at this and thought it was an opportunity to build in a pathway to export limiting in future, which is a better outcome for the customer. And so that’s what drove us to change.”
Why SwitchDin
The decision to extend the existing SwitchDin relationship into the next phase of Horizon Power’s DER program was grounded in more than product capability. By the time the evaluation began, Horizon Power had already deployed over 1,500 SwitchDin’s Secure Gateway Devices, Edge Controller, across its service territory through the Smart Connect Solar DER program. The hardware was embedded. The operational confidence was established.
Four factors reinforced SwitchDin’s selection as the platform of choice:
Commercial readiness: SwitchDin’s Utility Server was already live and proven across other Australian utilities, removing the risk and cost associated with developing a bespoke solution.
Hardware continuity: Assured compatibility between the new Utility Server and the more than 1,500 SGDs already deployed in the field, protecting the utility’s existing infrastructure investment.
Technical accommodation: SwitchDin’s willingness to integrate with Horizon Power’s preferred Kafka messaging architecture.
Collaborative working relationship: In complex technology programs, the quality of the vendor relationship is often as consequential as the technology itself. Horizon Power’s team cited SwitchDin’s responsiveness, transparency, and genuine flexibility as material factors in extending the partnership.
The Solution: Utility Server closing the capability gap
SwitchDin’s Utility Server, FlexGateway, provided the missing capabilities Horizon Power needed to move beyond solar management and towards full DER orchestration. The platform introduced battery orchestration, a pathway to export limiting and support for Horizon Power’s future transition to CSIP-AUS, while integrating with the utility’s existing DER ecosystem and deployed field devices.
SwitchDin’s Utility Server was deployed into Horizon Power’s production environment and integrated via Kafka.
The deployment introduced four core capabilities that Horizon Power’s previous platform could not provide:
Battery orchestration, providing active control over customer-owned battery systems for the first time.
Export limiting, which can be used as well as generation limiting for managing solar output; enabling customers to self-consume as much as possible rather than simply curtailing production.
CSIP-AUS compliance, positioning Horizon Power in line with the emerging national standard for DER communication and control.
Platform extensibility, creating a technical foundation capable of accommodating electric vehicles, flexible loads, and future DER technologies as they enter the market.
SwitchDin’s Utility Server is not a standalone product in this context; it is the operational layer through which Horizon Power will execute its broader distributed energy strategy across some of Australia’s most logistically demanding service areas.
The difference it makes
Once fully deployed, the Utility Server is expected to deliver measurable improvements across three dimensions.
Customer experience
The future shift from generation limiting to export limiting, represents customer-facing improvements. Under the current model, solar systems are constrained during periods of network stress by curtailing generation. Export limiting will preserve the customer’s ability to generate power while managing the network impact, resulting in higher self-consumption and greater value from rooftop solar assets. Battery orchestration will extend this further, enabling customers to maximise returns from storage investments. Broader equipment compatibility also expands the range of inverter and battery products eligible for connection to Horizon Power’s network.
Network operations
For Horizon Power, the Utility Server represents a direct step toward the distributed optimisation model at the centre of the utility’s 2030 strategy. CSIP-AUS alignment ensures Horizon Power is positioned for the regulatory and technical direction of the broader Australian energy market, while the platform’s extensibility provides a credible pathway to managing electric vehicles, flexible loads, and future DER categories within isolated microgrid environments.
Long-term partnership value
This has reinforced a partnership that is now well into its second phase of maturity. As Horizon Power’s DER requirements continue to evolve, the shared objective of enabling renewable energy growth in a cost-effective, operationally sound manner provides a durable basis for continued collaboration.
Looking ahead
As Horizon Power continues its transition towards higher levels of DER participation, battery adoption and distributed optimisation, the partnership with SwitchDin will remain focused on enabling customer choice, supporting renewable energy growth and delivering practical outcomes across some of Australia's most challenging operating environments.
In that context, what SwitchDin provides extends beyond a technology platform. The Utility Server gives Horizon Power a foundation from which to pursue its renewable energy objectives without exposing the network to undue risk. The partnership provides the responsiveness and technical flexibility that complex, remotely managed programs inevitably require.
As battery uptake accelerates, more electric vehicles enter regional communities, and Australia’s DER standards continue to mature, the capability platform established through this program will become progressively more central to how Horizon Power manages energy across its network.
The microgrid is the grid. In an environment where there is no interconnected network to fall back on, the margin for error in DER management is effectively zero. SwitchDin’s Utility Server gives Horizon Power the control architecture and the partnership to navigate that challenge at scale.
