Ameren Digital Command Center Unifies Technology Operations

The electric utility industry faces multiple challenges, from DER penetration and cybersecurity threats to the demands of grid modernization, highlighting the limitations of siloed IT and OT systems, which create operational risk, impact reliability and cap the value of new technology investments. This presentation demonstrates how the thoughtful convergence of IT and OT, built on a foundation of partnership, becomes a fundamental strategy for superior reliability management. It moves beyond viewing integration as a simple efficiency exercise, reframing it as a collaborative approach essential for resilience.

This presentation will detail a strategic journey that successfully brought Ameren's IT and OT teams together to build a fully integrated ICT operational infrastructure. The session will explore the engineering and management principles that guided this transformation, emphasizing the importance of shared goals and the need to foster trust between IT/OT professionals. It will demonstrate the direct impact of this unified approach on reliability and availability metrics, showing how a collaborative, integrated model can drastically shorten troubleshooting and service restoration times.
Attendees will gain insight into a multi-layered strategy for leveraging a converged ICT operations infrastructure to enhance grid resilience, cost-effectively. The session will also share benchmarkable best practices for modernizing operations.