Capability Models
Utilities Business Capabilities Model
A Utilities capability map built around the regulated, rate-of-return business model — rate cases, PUC oversight, outage management, and AMI metering — 295+ capabilities with definitions and KPIs.
What this capability model is for
A capability model lists what a business does, separate from who does it and which systems support it. Because it changes less often than the org chart or the application estate, it gives strategy, architecture and finance one map to plan against.
Teams use it to scope a transformation, to check which capabilities each application supports and where two overlap, to assign costs and owners, and to plan the integration after a merger.
About This Capability Model
A detailed, multi-level capability map for the Utilities sector, covering 295+ business capabilities organized across three hierarchical levels. It's built around the regulated, rate-of-return business model — rate-base investment, rate cases, and PUC oversight — that separates a utility from a merchant energy company.
Why a capability model, not a prompt
Prompt a generic AI for "utility capabilities" and you'll typically get the same list you'd get for any energy company — generate or source product, deliver it, bill the customer. What that list misses is the one fact that actually defines a utility: it doesn't sell power, gas, or water for a competitive margin, it earns a regulated rate of return on the capital it invests in its rate base, set through a rate case filed with a state Public Utility Commission (and FERC for interstate transmission). That single fact reshapes what "capability" means here — rate-case preparation and regulatory-relations capabilities sit alongside outage and reliability management measured against SAIDI/SAIFI-style interruption metrics regulators actually hold the utility to, and metering and billing has become its own capability domain now that advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) turns a monthly meter read into a two-way, near-real-time data capability. A generic prompt with no knowledge of rate-base regulation will hand you a merchant energy company's capability list with the word "utility" swapped in. This model is built around the regulated, rate-of-return operating model, not the competitive one, because that's what actually separates a utility from an unregulated energy company.
What's Inside
- Capability Map — 295+ capabilities across Level 1 (strategic), Level 2 (tactical), and Level 3 (operational), spanning regulatory affairs, delivery and reliability, and metering and billing, in PowerPoint, Word, and Excel
- Capability Definitions — Clear, granular descriptions for consistent interpretation across regulatory, operations, and customer teams
- Capability KPIs — Level 2 measurable indicators to benchmark maturity and performance, including reliability and metering metrics
How Teams Use It
- Build the capability baseline behind a rate case, showing regulators and internal stakeholders exactly which capabilities a proposed rate-base investment funds
- Scope an AMI or grid-modernization program against the specific metering, billing, and outage-management capabilities it upgrades, instead of a generic "customer systems" line item
- Track reliability capability maturity against outage-management and restoration performance in the terms state PUCs actually evaluate
- Give regulatory affairs, operations, and customer teams a shared capability vocabulary heading into a rate case, merger review, or PUC compliance audit
Who It's For
Enterprise and business architects, regulatory affairs leaders, and technology leaders at electric, gas, and water utilities who need a capability structure built for a rate-regulated business, not a competitive one.