Utility network and Digital Twin

Question

Hi folks, now can we consider the utility network as part of Digital Twin?

I am preparing my master thesis which will focus on the Utility Network for Electric network industry and a comparison between Geometric network and UN.

so can can the thesis title be "Digital Twin for Electricity Network" ?

Jens_Dalsgaard · Answer

Allow me to refer you to a LinkedIn post that I made earlier:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jensdalsgaard_dso-digitaltwin-gis-activity-7008701841232265216-rfSa?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Scandinavian utilities have what many utilities out there are still working towards: A digital twin of the grid and and an implemented master data management strategy where grid documentation from ArcGIS Utility Network feed the ERP, the ADMS, grid calculations, etc. No duplicates.

In the comments to the post I offer my input to a definition of digital twins in context of electric utility.

Good luck with your thesis.

BillFox · Answer

location-location-location

full 3-D highly precision mobile GPS on-the-fly, in the field and in the facilities, data capture and maintenance

elevation standards locally, inter-agency, county-wide, state-wide, etc.

AnthonyRyanEQL · Answer

What's your definition of a 'Digital Twin'? In the electrical industry there are generally many digital twins for a physical asset in the field. You have electronic record of the asset in an EAM system, one in a GIS system and one or many in OT systems. As Richard mentioned above, lack of data is the biggest issue in any organisation and having a system to aggregate it all together to form a single digital twin of an asset is complex.

Using the Utility Network does form part of the Digital Twin but using Geometric network or even the plain old features in a point/line/polygon feature class would be too. It depends on the requirements. Most people just want to see where the asset is located along with some historical data (eg. inspection/image) from their EAM system. If it could be enhanced by streaming SCADA/IoT data it would be a massive step forward.

Good luck with your thesis.