One51 Success Stories
Connecting GIS to Asset Data to Transform Network Decision Making
Client Profile
As the largest electricity distributor on Australia’s east coast by population served, Ausgrid plays a critical role in delivering energy to 1.8 million customers across Sydney, the Central Coast, and the Hunter region. Managing a complex network spanning 22,275 km², the organisation is directly accountable for network performance, including outages, faults, and infrastructure upgrades.
To support these responsibilities, trusted data is essential. While Ausgrid has invested significantly in building its data capability, it identified a key opportunity to improve how it models the costs and benefits of maintaining and replacing network assets, enabling more accurate investment planning and better customer outcomes.
Fragmented Data and Limited Scalability
Ausgrid’s network data sits across many systems but two of the key systems are:
A Geographic Information System (GIS) platform, which is used by many teams, including field crews to locate and understand physical assets
An asset management system, which is core system for the entire organisation and assists with financial and planning purposes
The data volumes and complexity of the network, that needs to be represented in these systems is significant, comprising:
Over 13,000 km of overhead cabling
More than 7,000 km of underground cabling
Over one million individual cable segments and associated infrastructure
These systems capture different levels of detail. For example, the GIS has location-based detail but certain components such as ‘cross-arms’ (which are the bars that hold up the wires on an electricity pole) are not represented. The asset management systems have hundreds of attributes for an asset but lack detailed spatial data and do not provide detail on the individual segments that make up a cable.
" Having a trusted, integrated view of our network data is critical to how we plan and deliver for our customers. The generated assets model has improved decision-making accuracy, transparency, and timeliness, shifting us from a manual annual process to a dynamic model we rely on daily. Partnering with One51 has been instrumental in unlocking our data’s full value and strengthening future network management."
Lachlan Hope
Data Services and Platforms Manager, Ausgrid
A new model of ‘generated assets’
To overcome these limitations, Ausgrid partnered with One51 Consulting, leveraging their deep expertise in the energy sector and advanced data analytics. Working closely with the data platform and GIS teams, One51 designed and implemented a new approach to unify GIS and Asset data. This involved building a calculated representation of network assets by applying network tracing, spatial relationships, and defined business rules that combined data across these systems.
The result was a new, scalable model of ‘generated assets’, providing a consistent, transparent, and up-to-date view of the network to support more effective planning and maintenance decisions.
Ausgrid had already implemented Databricks as their core data platform due to its ability to scale, integrated storage, compute, governance and AI capabilities. One51 extended this platform to develop the ‘generated assets’ solution by utilising the specialised capabilities of GraphFrames, NetworkX and spatial functions to combine asset and geospatial data.
Through extensive testing and validation this new solution has provided a model that is more transparent and accurate. The entire model is automatically re-calculated daily within 25 minutes – providing a huge reduction in preparation effort and frequency compared to the annual cycle that was possible previously.
"This engagement shows what a strong partnership can achieve. Working closely with Ausgrid, we combined GIS and asset data, overcame scaling limits, and replaced manual processes that restricted insights. Using advanced data engineering on Databricks, we delivered a scalable, automated solution with a transparent, up-to-date network view. The generated assets model enables faster, more informed investment decisions, reduces operational effort, and supports better customer outcomes. We’re proud to continue partnering with Ausgrid as they build a more data-driven, future-ready network."
Peter Hopwood
Director of Consulting Services, One51 Consulting
From Annual Process to Daily Insight
The new solution provided Ausgrid with a more accurate and up to date model for cost benefit analysis, provided additional clarity to field workers, and allows better monitoring of customer impact.
Future work that is planned will extend this model to include additional assets and asset types for greater detail and accuracy.
