National Grid ESO to digitise Great Britain’s energy system
United Kingdom, London: National Grid Electricity System Operator has been awarded a Strategic Innovation Fund grant to support its Common Framework Project.
Image source: National Grid ESO
United Kingdom, London: National Grid Electricity System Operator has been awarded a Strategic Innovation Fund grant to support its Common Framework Project.
The project comprises the development of the principles and technical framework for the creation of the Virtual Energy System programme – a digital replica of Britain’s entire energy landscape.
Made up of multiple digital twins, the Virtual Energy System will work in parallel to the physical system, affording a virtual environment to share real-time data and enable users to model and predict scenarios that will support the decarbonisation of the energy industry, while supporting a digital-first and sustainable energy network for the future.
National Grid ESO is working with a range of project partners and technical consortium who bring considerable expertise in digital twins, systems-thinking, and energy data to the project.
Earlier this year, it announced that it had appointed Arup, supported by Energy Systems Catapult and Icebreaker One, to help identify and articulate the relevant principles for the technical framework which will serve as a ‘blueprint’, enabling multiple parties to develop digital twins which are interoperable and can interact with the Virtual Energy System, using open data.
„While the Virtual Energy System aims to foster innovation and development, it’s vital that different pieces of the Digital Twin are compatible and adhere to a Common Framework,“ said Jonathan Barcroft, Common Framework Workstream Lead, National Grid ESO
A project of this ambition, scale and complexity has never been achieved before and the programme will run over several years. This next phase of the Common Framework Project will enable us to explore key considerations for the creation of the Virtual Energy System, including themes such as cyber security, data quality, metadata, legal and regulatory issues, and common attributes of digital twins.
Source: National Grid ESO