I work in this industry and there are a lot of bad UI choices all around. The picture of the California board looks like a good example and uncluttered. They have the budget out there to do that.
It doesn't have to be this way. There are standards for high performance HMI design where nothing is colored in unless it is an alarm condition.
I usually have to end up designing things the "bad way" because of customer expectation/demand. Some guy designed a screen back in 1989 and that became what they expect.
CAISO's big board is reasonably uncluttered. PJM's has too much small stuff. [1] But everybody probably uses mostly the screens at their own position.
One can get carried away. Here's the control room for Moscow United's power control room. This is just for the Moscow area, not a regional grid control room like the others.[2] This is the as-built version. The original plan [3] looked like a set for a Bond movie, including a suspended oval glass conference room overlooking the big board. That was from Russia's oligarch era.
It doesn't have to be this way. There are standards for high performance HMI design where nothing is colored in unless it is an alarm condition.
I usually have to end up designing things the "bad way" because of customer expectation/demand. Some guy designed a screen back in 1989 and that became what they expect.