Bridging the gap from geographical to electrical modelling

Grid data management is an essential activity of any power system operator. However, the IT solutions that have been developed so far to handle grid data have high IT complexity. It is thus desirable to investigate how grid data management could be made simpler and more accessible to organisations of all sizes. As a first practical step toward achieving this vision, we advocate the integration of two types of modelling that are currently usually done separately, namely geographical modelling and electrical modelling. The resulting approach, which we refer to as "Unified Grid Modelling", could help local grid operators benefit from digitalization without significantly increasing the complexity of their IT environment.