Utilities are starting to invest in new technology, such as BIM, digital twins, and AI-assistance in their substation design processes, to help improve reliability and accelerate delivery. Substation data models built on unified standards are essential for enabling digital twins, automation, and scalable engineering workflows. However, many initiatives stall because the underlying data remains fragmented across disciplines and tools. When functional intent, physical geometry, and protection and control (P&C) logic are represented in separate proprietary formats and drawings, every handoff becomes a costly translation, inconsistency creeps in, and automation cannot scale beyond pilots. The path to measurable value is a unified, standards-aligned model that preserves meaning across the full lifecycle, enabling faster delivery, fewer bespoke integrations, and digital twins that can be trusted in operations.
Substation projects typically still split critical engineering information across civil, structural, electrical, and P&C teams, each using different tools, different naming conventions, and different data structures. The result is that critical engineering intent gets lost or recreated between design, construction, commissioning, operations, and maintenance, often multiple times across concurrent projects.
The impact can be severe. Costly one-off integrations, limited automation, and disjointed workflows make it nearly impossible to build scalable lifecycle automation, especially for real-time applications. There is no conflict detection or resolution across domains, and no common base across projects or digital twins.
The urgency is real: utilities need to move from “project-centric” to “asset-centric” thinking. Digital twins demand unified semantics across disciplines and across time.
The standards gap in substation data models
The industry has strong standards. The problem is that neither of the two most relevant standards spans the entire substation lifecycle.
IEC CIM is excellent for semantics, topology, and equipment behavior. The proposed Grid Model Data Management (GMDM) standards address data management for power flow and real-time systems. In a nutshell, CIM is designed for operations, planning, and analysis, but it does not model buildings, structures, foundations, clearances, P&C artifacts, or engineering drawings. There’s no geometry, no drawing workflows, and no construction lifecycle.
IFC (ISO 16739) is excellent for geometry, physical details, and constructability of buildings and general infrastructure. But it has significant limitations for high-voltage power systems and substations: building-scale electrical classes only, no power network semantics, no protection logic, and no operations semantics.
There is no integrated standard covering both grid power flow and structural workflow use cases. Fragmentation is inevitable without a unifying schema—one that allows industries, domains, and disciplines to coexist, stay aligned, and evolve together.
A unified data model architecture for substations
At Bentley, we’ve been developing a standards-driven approach built on Base Infrastructure Schemas (BIS), a family of modular schemas for modeling federated digital twins across industries and domains. BIS expresses taxonomy, data structure, and relationships for modeling the real world. It’s open and extensible, modularized into domains, with core capability expressing fundamental modeling concepts.
This unified architecture works in deliberate layers that serve two purposes: separating concerns and enabling independent evolution.
Information layers define what the substation is and does:
- Functional layer: What the substation does: CIM-driven intent and behavior. What does each piece of equipment do?
- Physical layer: How it exists: IFC-informed geometry, structures, and spatial relationships.
- P&C layer: How it behaves under protection—schematics, wiring diagrams, symbols, and relay logic.
- Asset and lifecycle layer: How it changes over time—work orders and states.
Schema layers define how the model is structured and can grow:
- Power system resources layer (CIM-aligned): The standards-based backbone with abstract and base classes representing core electric network concepts—equipment, connectivity, phases, switching behavior, and asset semantics.
- Application and discipline layers: Specializations for substation topology, line design, distribution assets, protection logic, and civil/structural geometry that sit above the core resources.
- Customization layers: Utility-defined attributes, reference codes, naming rules, and integration fields that allow localization while preserving interoperability with standards.
This three-tier structure lets organizations evolve safely while staying aligned with industry standards. Layers grow as standards and user requirements evolve. They evolve independently, reducing regression and integration risk. And clear, explicit links between layers preserve compatibility, enable validations, and prevent semantic drift.
A knowledge graph abstracts the complexity, making the data model consumable by design tools, AI, and people.
Concurrent engineering in substation design
The architecture also addresses one of the most persistent pain points in substation projects: how to handle concurrent workflows.
The model follows a GitHub-like concurrent engineering approach: one branch per discipline—civil, electrical, P&C, and structural, with automated conflict detection and merge gates plus review. No more serial design and no more reliance on review sessions to catch conflicts.
Cross-layer contracts enforce integrity across the model. The functional layer defines immutable “contracts” that the physical, P&C, and lifecycle layers implement. When something changes, it triggers a review, not silent breakage.
This matters at every layer of the model:
- In the functional model, CIM-aligned semantics define what the substation must do. Terminal and node semantics, compatible class hierarchies, and network model fidelity ensure operational systems can depend on the data. Substation-specific extensions add classes for wires, potentials, functional containers, and work-order aspects. CIM becomes a semantic interoperability language across GIS, DMS, EMS, markets, and asset systems.
- In the physical model, IFC complements CIM: CIM covers semantics while IFC covers geometry. Ports, equipment types, spatial relationships, and construction metadata give the physical model its richness. Design intent is preserved and change management is enabled through ports, joints, and functional relationships. When civil updates a structure, it flags electrical equipment placement for update and review.
- In the P&C model, drawing workflows extend and add functional elements to the model. Symbols reference those elements, so functional changes flag and update drawings. Relay scheme changes propagate through drawing elements, functional elements, and physical elements, and are flagged for review.
How substation data models enable digital twin workflows
The architecture enables a digital twin data flow that closes the loop between engineering and operations:
- A baseline as-built model flows from facilities and asset management into operations.
- Concurrent projects branch from the baseline—Team 1 and Team 2 work in parallel with merge gates and site-level rules.
- Real-time feedback uses IEC CIM standards for temporary real-time state data, such as operational conditions. Functional changes can then flag and update drawings.
- Change and conflict management ensures that changes between physical and drawing elements propagate through functional elements and auto-update or flag for review.
The question every utility should be asking: How fast does operational discovery get back to engineering today? What if it could be near real time?
Introducing OpenUtilities Substation+
Substation+ is our new application for intuitive and collaborative model-centric, AI-supported substation design. Intelligent substation design at scale begins here.
Substation+ represents the practical realization of the architecture described above, connecting data and people across the lifecycle through Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, improving project delivery and asset performance with solutions for modeling and simulation, operations and maintenance decisions, cloud-based data management and collaboration, and digital twins for better decision making.
Summary
Standards are foundational to lifecycle automation. Fragmented, project-centric data models prevent engineering intent from surviving handoffs across design, construction, commissioning, and operations. A standards-based, asset-centric data model enables automation, real-time integration, and long-term value across the substation lifecycle through digital twins.
No single standard is sufficient. Seamless interoperability and integration require unifying ontologies. IEC CIM excels at functional and operational semantics. IFC excels at geometry and constructability. But neither spans the full substation lifecycle. A unifying BIS-based schema allows these standards to coexist, stay aligned, and evolve together, preserving meaning across disciplines and tools.
Lifecycle success depends on explicit relationships, not file exchanges. Consistent classification, shared identifiers, and explicit relationships enable multidiscipline coordination, conflict detection, and traceability, even under concurrent projects and parallel change.
A practical blueprint exists and can be applied incrementally. A layered, standards-driven architecture, functional first, extended by discipline-specific and utility-customized layers, provides a scalable, governable path forward. This approach reduces custom integrations, clarifies ownership and change control, and accelerates outcomes from design through asset management. A knowledge graph simplifies data access for design and AI workflows.
Apply for early access to next-generation substation design
Substation+ is next-generation substation design software, purpose-built for intelligent 3D design, real-time collaboration, AI-assisted workflows, and connected cloud delivery. Apply for early access to explore how concurrent design can accelerate your projects and improve coordination across teams.
