The Breakfast Club: How Ergon Energy Retail continues to use data to grow a competitive edge
Synopsis Business users rarely ask for complex data architecture; they just want fast answers. This article explores how Ergon Energy Retail used Databricks’ Genie AI to close the gap between legacy reporting and real-time insight, allowing their teams to interrogate customer data directly through natural language. Bridging the Reporting Bottleneck: How Ergon moved past the […]
The Breakfast Club: Notes from our panel with Alinta Energy & Squadron Energy
Synopsis While some energy companies are painstakingly unwinding legacy systems, others are building massive greenfield data platforms from scratch to capture the renewables market at pace. This breakdown of the recent Ignite Breakfast Club explores the contrasting strategies of Alinta Energy and Squadron Energy, highlighting how industry leaders are tackling governance, physical asset integration, and […]
Why your data users need NLQ tools and the blueprint for integration
Synopsis Most data platforms don’t fail because of technical flaws. They fail behaviourally. This article explores how Natural Language Querying (NLQ) and tools like Databricks AI/BI Genie are closing that gap from insight to decision by allowing business users to interrogate data directly. The Adoption Gap: Why technical perfection often leads to shadow analysis in […]
Why Technical Perfection Silently Kills Data ROI
Author Mitch De ZylvaSolution Architect In data engineering, there is a dangerous seduction to the perfect architecture. We chase the most elegant or scalable code, the most sophisticated Data Architecture patterns, and 100% test coverage. We build for the ‘99.999% edge case’ before we’ve solved the 80% business reality. But as our team has seen […]
Beyond the Kilowatt Hour: The Value in the Data Behind It
In The Ghost in the Machine, we looked at how the pending Kraken demerger signals something larger than a restructure. AI-driven platforms are redefining how energy businesses interact with customers, turning billing systems into engines of insight and transforming customers from passive users into actual points of presence within the energy system. No longer ghosts […]
The Ghost in the Machine
The announced demerger of the Kraken platform from Octopus Energy is more than a footnote in corporate restructuring. While the strategic rationale for the demerger – unlocking value, enabling neutrality, focusing investment – is clear, this separation signifies a fundamental shift in where value resides within the energy sector. It presents both opportunities for innovation […]
Webinar: Metrics That Matter with Tyremax
Recorded 8 September, 2025 Marius Vermeulen, CEO Tyremax Harj Chand, Managing Director Ignite Data Solutions Emily Kucukalic, Managing Director BNY Download audio Share this webinar Email Facebook LinkedIn WhatsApp About The Session Chapters About The Speaker About The Session Marius Vermeulen is not your average CEO. He holds multiple degrees in multiple fields. Technically a […]
Tyremax & Ignite: Driving Business Clarity Through Data
We recently hosted the CEO of Tyremax, Marius Vermeulen on our webinar Metrics That Matter – where we focused on how Marius and his team went about identifying and leveraging a small set of essential metrics to align the entire organisation. Marius Vermeulen is not your average CEO. He holds multiple degrees in multiple fields. […]
Halfway Through the Transition: What’s happened since 2020?
Since 2020, Australia has witnessed a significant acceleration in renewable energy investment, driven by ambitious state and federal targets, declining technology costs, and large energy users backing the need to decarbonise the economy. Organisations across sectors, from major energy companies and independent developers to institutional investors and individual households, have invested billions into utility-scale solar […]
Empowering Energy’s Future: Insights from the Databricks Energy and Utilities Forum
The recent Databricks Energy and Utilities Forum brought together leaders from across the sector to explore how data and AI are driving transformation during one of the industry’s most dynamic periods. I had the privilege of joining Julien Debard, Director of Energy and Utilities at Databricks, who shared global insights, while I focused on the […]