A system and method for controlling an electrical submersible pump (ESP) of a well, including a processor and a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform operations. The operations include obtaining a well model corresponding to the well, obtaining a target well rate for the well, then receiving, from one or more data sources associated with one or more components of the well, operational data associated with the ESP operating at the target well rate within the well, determining a target efficiency of the ESP at the target well rate based on the well model, and then modifying, based on the operational data and the target efficiency an operating characteristic of the ESP.