Case USA73: Why a Smart Grid Pilot Used Digital Twins to Distract from Enterprise Architecture Gaps
- Sunil Dutt Jha
- Aug 18
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 11
Overview:
This case is part of a 100-diagnostic series revealing how US energy utilities have mislabeled advanced pilots as “Enterprise Architecture progress.”
In smart grid programs, a recurring pattern is treating digital twin projects as proof of architectural maturity.
Assets were simulated, predictive maintenance improved, and outage scenarios could be tested — yet the enterprise structure linking generation, distribution, demand management, and customer services was never modeled.
P1–P6 Insight Preview:
These six perspectives define how an enterprise connects intent to execution — P1: Strategy, P2: Business Processes, P3: System Behaviors, P4: Component Governance, P5: Implementation, P6: Business & Technology Operations.
P1 (Strategy): Digital twins were framed as an innovation win, but no roadmap connected them to grid resilience or customer reliability goals.
P2 (Process): Maintenance and monitoring processes were updated, but outage response and grid balancing remained fragmented.
P3 (System): Twin models weren’t behaviorally integrated with SCADA, outage management, or customer information systems.
P4 (Component): Sensors, modeling software, and control modules were governed as separate vendor domains.
P5 (Implementation): Pilots were delivered on schedule, but scaling across the enterprise lacked planning.
P6 (Operations): Business ops could test scenarios, but tech ops still patched disconnected systems during real outages.
Stakeholder Impact Summary:
CEO/Utility CEO: Suffers from weak P1 Strategy — innovation pilots look good in press releases, but they don’t connect to the enterprise’s strategic KPIs for reliability and resilience.
CIO: Impacted by gaps in P3 System Behaviors and P4 Component Governance — multiple platforms collect data, but with no common governance model, integration complexity and vendor lock-in increase.
Sales Head (Commercial Accounts): Affected by broken P2 Business Processes and P5 Implementation — commercial clients are impressed by demos, but scaling the benefits to actual service contracts fails.
Chief Enterprise Architect: Sees issues across P1–P6 — every layer is acting in isolation, with no enterprise-wide architecture to tie pilots into core operations.
Head of Grid Operations: Feels failures in P2, P3, and P6 — must coordinate outage responses manually because operational workflows and systems aren’t linked to the new digital twin capabilities.
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