Summary Report: The NextGen Control Center Workshop

Reimagining Grid Operations

The AEIC’s Center for Operational Excellence convened utility leaders and industry partners to explore how the NextGen Control Center can improve reliability, resilience, safety, and customer outcomes by unifying data, systems, and people. Participants examined practical pathways to move from siloed monitoring to coordinated, data-driven operations grounded in governance, common architecture, and continuous learning. 

The workshop highlighted the following focal points: 

• Unified operational picture across ADMS, OMS, DERMS, EMS, SCADA, GIS, AMI, and work management to improve situational awareness and decision speed. 

• People–process–technology alignment: Alignment across people, process, and technology is the decisive factor. Modernization succeeds through governance, clear roles, and change management, not software alone. 

• Storm and major-event operations as proving grounds for ADMS/OMS integration (e.g., FLISR, VVO, topology/model accuracy, telemetry, and communications latency). 

• Digital twins and decision intelligence to test operational scenarios safely and accelerate operator confidence. 

• Cloud- and API-enabled data layer (e.g., lakehouse) with cybersecurity-by-design and semantic interoperability to scale analytics and AI. 

• Pilot-to-scale discipline: structured use-case roadmaps, feedback loops, and shared learning networks to shorten time from pilots to production.