Digital Twins for Electric Utilities: Definition, Considerations, and Applications

The electric utility sector has and will continue to face challenges from managing a dynamic grid that is constantly evolving, as rapid changes associated with the energy transition make the grid less predictable. The unpredictability of many aspects of the grid arises from the emergence of a portfolio of assets that consumers demand, and others that contribute to global decarbonization and sustainability efforts. Such assets may include consumer appliances, consumer electronics, inverter-based resources (IBRs), and electric vehicles (EVs); these are only a few examples of equipment in the grid that may be unpredictable either in consumption or generation behavior. The larger challenge is the upcoming equipment that is out of utility control and will be interconnected in the future, as various industries innovate to meet evolving customer demands. From another angle, climate change is creating complexities in grid management since events related to the climate are evolving and becoming less predictable. Utilities are experiencing climate events that are abnormal to their specific geographic area; with this, they have not historically been planned for. Finally, aging utility infrastructure is causing challenges in efficiently managing the grid to achieve all utility key performance metrics. Many of these rapid changes are happening in parallel, whereas existing utility processes and tools were developed based on historical grid operations which were relatively more static, with perhaps distributed energy resources (DERs) being the only key source of unpredictability. These concurrent challenges drive the question that the industry is asking: How do we keep up with such changes, knowing that new phenomena in climate, customer adoption of new technologies, and concerns around utility asset health longevity could arise?