Creating Cities of the Future with Digital Twin Technology
benefits so they can truly envision how
proposed changes will improve their own
neighborhood. temperature and pressure information to
identify pump inefficiencies and potential
leaks.
This digital twin proof-of-concept model
focuses on the market demand created by
progressive government leaders around the
world setting zero emissions goals.
Renewable energy planning requires
coordinated access to time of use and
energy demand data, distributed energy
management, load forecasting algorithms
and product performance characteristics of
existing and emerging renewable energy
infrastructure elements. Historically, energy
consumption data has remained siloed at
the utility. To accurately model and
transform the energy system, the digital
twin concept leverages these “utility-
owned” and “city-managed” data sets such
as: This digital twin concept embraces an open
architecture whereby a marketplace of
digital twins may be made broadly available
to facilitate innovation and collaboration
among the various stakeholders. By creating
an ecosystem of open-data sourced device
twins, any city may leverage efforts across
multiple sectors to optimize resource
allocation across a number of smart city
applications. This approach promotes
integrated uses of technologies and services
that, in the initial use case example of DER
planning, provides resiliency, ensures time-
of-use electricity signals align with marginal
carbon emissions signals and expedites the
process from plan to action for zero
emissions goals. Using an open digital twin
platform approach, city leaders not only
make
data-driven
investments
in
infrastructure, but avoid having to manage
multiple siloed systems as it adds services to
benefit its citizens in the future.
Historical and predicted power
consumption by neighborhood
Infrastructure mapping and maps of
utility assets
Local environmental data
Street maps, census data and
neighborhood information (what
neighborhoods are in a district, city
or county and how their boundaries
are defined).
A D IGITAL T WIN C ONCEPT FOR
D ISTRIBUTED E NERGY R ESOURCES
While the value of combining mixed reality
with a digital twin drives understanding and
education for citizens that will be impacted
by the proposed changes, a digital twin
platform is an ideal forecasting and planning
tool for virtual Smart City pilots by planners
and operators of clean energy infrastructure
projects such as gas, water and people
movement.
While
the
urgent
focus
is
on
decarbonization, a city-focused digital twin
platform may also be used to model other
city services such as a city’s fresh and
wastewater system. In the case of water
distribution, a digital twin platform may
ingest supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) data together with
other information such as acoustic signals,
To address the emergent clean energy use
case, Itron developed a web-based user
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November 2019