The Challenge
Xcel Energy’s Integrated Systems Planning (ISP) team serves as a central cornerstone of the company, with data reporting flowing in from all business units. The team needed a more scalable data strategy — one that allowed for consolidation, governance, and reliable accessibility across its planning workflows.
A System Deficiency Assessment model critical to identifying infrastructure needs and originating capital projects lacked a governed interface for ingestion, analysis, and long-term storage. Separately, the EnCompass model — which produces scenario-based outputs used in Integrated Resource Planning — was distributed through large, manually maintained Excel workbooks that created version control risks and made consistent scenario comparison across stakeholders difficult.
Divergent file versions and fragmented storage locations made it impossible to trust or consistently access ISP model outputs.
No enforceable data schemas or governance standards existed to support reliable file loading and long-term storage.
Legacy Excel-based EnCompass reporting limited accessibility, introduced manual effort and versioning risk, and prevented consistent analytical comparison across operating companies.
The Solution
Motive Power developed and implemented a data strategy and tooling solution built around the ISP team’s existing workflow and enterprise storage environment.
Conducted technical requirements gathering with the ISP team to understand workflow needs, data types, and enterprise storage constraints before building anything.
Developed and implemented the System Deficiency Assessment tool, enabling the ISP team to upload model outputs, perform advanced analysis, and store results in a governed, enterprise-aligned format.
Mapped all possible file and data types the tool could intake, then built enforceable schemas and governance standards to support consistent, reliable file loading and storage over time.
Translated legacy EnCompass Output file logic into a governed Power BI semantic data model, replacing manually maintained Excel workbooks with standardized dashboards enabling pairwise scenario comparisons across IRP-defined scenarios.
Developed an uploader application enabling resource planners to upload EO files directly into enterprise storage, and implemented ETL processes to decompose EO data into structured, scalable formats within a centralized Databricks data platform.
Decoupled dashboard logic from individual Excel workbooks, improving auditability, reducing version ambiguity, and creating a scalable foundation for future dashboard development.
Key Metrics
The Results
The ISP team gained a reliable, governed single source of truth for model outputs, eliminating the fragmented storage and divergent file versions that had undermined planning confidence.
Standardized ETL processes enabled consistently accessible and usable model outputs, directly supporting the team’s ability to identify system needs and initiate capital projects from trusted data.
Resource planners and leadership gained faster, more consistent scenario comparison capability, with significantly reduced manual effort compared to prior spreadsheet-based processes.
A scalable, enterprise-grade analytics layer positioned the EnCompass platform to support IRP objectives and long-term resource planning well beyond the initial engagement.
