When the lights go out, remote communities are relying on SA Power Networks to come to the rescue – and field crews need to stay connected in order to respond quickly.
As the sole electricity distributor for South Australia, more than 1.7 million customers rely on SA Power Networks’ field crews to keep the lights on. The utility’s service area spans an enormous 178,000km2 and encompasses numerous remote and regional communities.
To support these small towns and communities, the regulated service provider operates a 24-hour faults and emergencies hotline. However, these locations are often highly remote, have limited services and infrastructure, and require long drives to access cellular coverage, creating challenges for utility response and repair teams.
SA Power Networks Head of Powerline and Electrical Services, Paul Salter, explained that a lack cellular coverage risked delaying repairs.
“Our field crews are working in regional and remote parts of the state, some of which have next to no cellular coverage. Without reliable service, crews could arrive at site to carry out works, but then need to travel to the nearest location with a cellular tower to communicate or access critical information related to the job,” he said.
SA Power Network’s crews were often forced to drive more than 20 minutes from the service sites to reach the coverage areas needed to receive approvals, look up information or provide status updates. These delays slowed restoration efforts in regional and remote areas, putting SA Power Networks at risk of not meeting restoration SLAs.
To keep its fleet connected, SA Power Networks deployed ruggedised Ericsson Cradlepoint routers across more than 170 vehicles to facilitate active Starlink satellite connectivity with cellular failover. Network performance is managed and monitored via Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Manager for single-pane-of-glass visibility from anywhere.
Due to the remote locations where maintenance work occurs, SA Power Networks uses Starlink satellite connectivity as the primary WAN connection. If the router detects degraded satellite performance or a clear line of sight is unavailable, service vehicle networks can fail over to a cellular connection, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity.
“The connectivity solutions we now have with 5G routers and Starlink LEO satellites are saving our field workers significant time on travel and administration effort,” Mr Salter said.
With network connectivity no longer a constraint, Mr Salter explained that SA Power Network’s crews could accomplish more digital tasks and make on-site decisions, which significantly reduced travel time and administrative effort. This enabled faster responses, fewer repeat trips and improved customer restoration times.
“Regional crews can now access consistent high-speed internet from anywhere at any time, making it faster and safer to carry out restoration and maintenance tasks and to keep head office and customers informed of their progress,” he said.
Through this guaranteed connectivity, SA Power Networks has estimated a per-year savings of 1845 hours as a result of enabling and improving digital technologies in the field. It also saved another 1844 hours per year by making it easier for crews to close out and approve jobs, and a further 1230 hours were saved by eliminating the time previously spent traveling to find a connection.
Driving safer operations
The combination of satellite and cellular to provide constant connectivity allows uninterrupted lines of contact with crews as they traverse remote areas throughout the state, giving field workers and their families peace of mind about their safety.
“With the combination of 5G and LEO satellite, crews have full connectivity in their trucks, which makes their jobs safer while outage times for our customers can be significantly reduced,” Mr Salter said.
Another essential resource for SA Power Networks was Ericsson’s NetCloud Manager, which offers centralised visibility and management of the organisation’s entire fleet of routers, along with clear insights into uptime and data usage across cellular and Starlink WAN interfaces.
The platform’s robust security and ability to export information such as SIM numbers for asset management have effectively met critical utility data handling requirements.
By leveraging innovative solutions to streamline processes and decrease dependence on offline capabilities, SA Power Networks was able to boost operational efficiencies and liberate valuable time and resources. This time saved operationally paves the way for SA Power Networks to drive future innovations, ensuring it continues to lead in service quality and technological advancement.
For more information, visit cradlepoint.com
