A new DNV research report has highlighted the importance of industry collaboration and trust if digital twins are to benefit the UK’s energy transition. It outlines the opportunities, benefits, barriers and risks of connected digital twins in the UK energy sector.
Connected Digital Twin Insights: Rising to the Challenge across the UK Energy Sector and Beyond recommends creating a “National Digital Twin” to simulate and interconnect assets, processes and systems.
A National Digital Twin was first proposed in a 2017 report published by the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC). The concept was a recommendation that sought to improve the UK’s public sector data sharing. To enable its realisation, the National Digital Twin programme (NDTp) was launched in 2018.
At the start of this year, National Grid ESO signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the UK government to support the creation of digital twins. ESO said that the MoU would initially focus on developing integrated high-level technical design and architecture, which identifies the interfaces between components of the future energy system data-sharing infrastructure.
DNV defines a digital twin as “a virtual representation of a system or asset, that calculates system states and makes system information available through integrated models and data, with the purpose of providing decision support over its lifecycle.”
The report evaluates how far the UK energy sector has come towards achieving a federated network of connected digital twins and looks to answer the question: “How can I trust my digital twin?”
Hari Vamadevan, senior vice president and regional director of UK & Ireland energy systems at DNV, said: “The UK energy sector stands on the brink of a remarkable transformation, leading us to an unprecedented level of interactivity and interconnectivity. Technologies like connected digital twins will underpin this transformation; the question becomes one of how the sector can harness their potential and add new impetus into the UK’s stalling energy transition.”
Establishing a National Digital Twin
The UK’s first Energy Digitalisation Strategy outlined the necessity of a digitised energy system, stating only intelligent data-based systems can accommodate the influx of millions of new energy flows.
There will not be one enormous model of every pipe, cable, and wind turbine in the UK. It is an ecosystem of digital twins of assets, all speaking the same digital language and established on foundations of trust. According to DNV, this ecosystem of connected digital twins will emerge as a key enabler for the energy transition.
To establish a National Digital Twin, improvements in data sharing must come first. The main barriers are due to opposition to change; the report states that there needs to be greater understanding of the problems a digital twin will solve.
While not novel, cybersecurity issues arise with digital twins because they introduce new points at which criminals can launch cyberattacks. Improved collaboration across the energy sector and across sectors is critical.
DNV concludes that connected digital twins must have trust at the core. Governance, strategies and assurance frameworks can provide roadmaps to achieving this trust.
Justin Anderson, director of the digital twin hub at Connected Places Catapult, said: “Collaborations in data sharing will play a pivotal role in realizing the benefits of connected digital twins, therefore enabling the role they can plan in transforming the future energy system.”
Vamadevan added: “At DNV, our belief is that trust is key to fostering digital twin adoption: finding the right balance between openness and security will be enabled by taking direct learnings from the industry, about building frameworks and standards to ensure assets are also inspected, tested or certified in the digital space, as well as the physical.”
