The Data Framework Working Group brings utility leaders and practitioners together to turn data into real operational value, building the foundation so data is reliable, accessible, and actionable for the decisions that matter most.
Most utilities are sitting on the same questions about definitions, structure, and governance, and answering them in isolation produces data that cannot be compared system to system. The working group builds the shared data foundation that digital transformation depends on, organized around AEIC’s Integrated System Planning and Operations Data Strategy Framework. It is the foundation the Center’s other programs, from forecasting to grid advancement, build on.
The north star: not more data in silos, but connected data, where planning, asset management, operations, and emergency response work in unison instead of in isolation. Shared language, clear ownership, trusted datasets, and practical quality standards. Because you cannot scale advanced analytics on a fragile foundation, and you cannot modernize the grid without first getting the data right.
This is not a governance exercise. The group builds practical, executable tasks, and refines its artifacts meeting to meeting rather than publishing once. This is utility voices leading utility voices.
Shared standards and trusted governance across utilities, so the same question gets the same kind of answer system to system.
A practical path from strategy to the field, because the constraint is the data, not the algorithm.
Proven architectures and governance models, carried from one member to the next instead of rebuilt from scratch.
Education, pilot projects, and aligned vendor participation, aimed at decisions proven in 90 days.
The group’s working artifacts are the framework made concrete: who owns which data decision, what quality looks like, what words mean, and where systems grind against each other. Each artifact moves version by version as members test it against real practice.
The connective tissue is the Adoption Playbook, a five-step path from the framework language to a 90-day plan a business leader can run without a data architect in the room. A Data Framework Toolkit is targeted for publication later in 2026.
Alongside the artifacts sits a workbook of ten North Star use cases, each a standalone business case with an executive sponsor, the systems and users, KPIs, blockers, and a 90-day pilot scope. None of them asks a utility to fix all its data. Each asks leadership to sponsor one business-critical decision, define the minimum trusted data it requires, and prove value in 90 days. That is how the work compounds.
Every session is anchored by a member walking through their real data and AI journey, no polish required. Two spotlights in a row arrived independently at the same four anchors, and they now shape the framework itself. In the words of co-chair Shane Powell: AI is the last 10 percent. Data is the first 90.
The work moves when leadership sponsors it, not when a tool arrives.
A safe place to start, with guardrails instead of gates.
IT serves Operations, and both sides meet on shared definitions.
Pick one decision, scope a 90-day sprint, and get started.
From the Grid Mod Pod: bridging the gap between IT and operations, the relationship the Data Framework depends on.
The operational arm the working group runs inside, and the foundation its other programs build on.
The fall cohort course. The course is this framework, taught.
A load forecaster sits in the Data Framework room, because the forecast is only as good as the data under it.
One utility membership opens this working group and every other committee and program to your whole organization. AEIC members can join the working group directly: email aeic@aeic.org and say you want in.
Join the working group See membership