By Sanjay Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Geospatial World
Growth in the energy sector is often a key determinant in the progress of a nation’s well-being and prosperity. With global temperatures rising and breaking records every year, nations around the world are looking for alternative energy solutions to reduce their carbon emissions and achieve net zero targets. According to the Climate Change Performance Index 2023, India is among the best-performing countries and ranks third in the world in terms of installed renewable energy capacity, while the rest of the world is dealing with energy security issues. However, the challenge before the country is big as the future power demand is likely to reach 708 GW by 2047. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure much of this is achieved from renewable energy, using advanced technologies.
In order to meet the future power demand, significant investment in technologies is key. Digital twin is one such technology that will assist in modernising the renewable energy sector and assist stakeholders in improving project efficiency and reducing cost. While traditionally linked to manufacturing, the renewable energy sector is also realising the value of digital twin, particularly in optimising wind farms, monitoring solar panels and maintaining hydro projects.
Applications of digital twin technology
Solar farm monitoring
In large solar farms, monitoring each panel can be a daunting task. One of the important benefits of digital twin is the real-time monitoring of physical assets. Digital twin provide continuous monitoring, helping to detect issues early and minimise disruptions. Digital twin can help check the physical conditions of physical assets and inform the concerned team if there is a need for immediate attention to any of them, ensuring uninterrupted power supply. It also helps evaluate all the possible scenarios in an improved manner to enhance efficiency and performance.
Digital twin help simulate potential degradation in panel efficiency over time, enabling operators to predict when specific parts might need replacement. This predictive capability helps reduce operational costs by allowing maintenance teams to intervene before small inefficiencies snowball into larger issues. Additionally, by optimising the angle and position of panels through digital simulations, farms can ensure maximum sunlight absorption throughout the day, driving up energy production and reducing operational costs in the long term.
Large solar farms are constantly monitored through the digital twin technology. In the case of Topaz Solar Farm in California, operators were able to double the solar panels’ performance and reduce the maintenance cost by 30 per cent by using digital twin. They were able to plan maintenance activities well in advance and identify the faulty ones, thus reducing the number of failures and improving the efficiency.
Wind farm performance optimisation
Wind turbines are huge in size and experience constant vibrations and in case of bad weather conditions, these vibrations get worse, which often leads to structural damage to the asset, as well as wear and tear of important equipment parts. Digital twin helps inform operators/technicians/engineers about the conditions of the parts in near-real time and helps them form a disaster response strategy for better performance of wind turbines even in harsh weather conditions.
In the case of a wind farm located in the North Sea, an area that experiences harsh weather conditions and high wind potential, digital twin helped engineers and operators monitor the farm’s performance and make decisions about its maintenance and adjustments of the angles of the turbines, based on the wind patterns. This helped in the optimisation of the wind farm, resulting in a 5 per cent increase in the overall energy production within the first month of adoption and improved the lifespan of turbines by three years. This has also helped improve the safety of technicians and engineers, who could detect faults remotely.
Wind farm maintenance
One of the biggest advantages that digital twin bring to the table is predictive maintenance. By simulating different scenarios, operators can predict when equipment is likely to fail, reducing downtime and minimising energy loss. This proactive approach saves costs and ensures that renewable energy systems operate at their peak efficiency.
In another example, Shanghai Survey, Design and Research Institute Company Limited (SIDRI) constructed an offshore wind farm in China, featuring 72 wind turbines and a booster station. SIDRI identified that they had to navigate the complex seabed terrain and mitigate threats such as the ice floes that could damage turbines, which required innovative design solutions. SIDRI adopted Bentley’s suite of applications to streamline collaboration, detect and eliminate clashes and improve design quality, resulting in significant time and cost savings.
With the help of the digital twin technology solutions, SIDRI made a saving of $0.7 million on each future project and improved operational efficiency throughout the project lifecycle. Additionally, SIDRI completed the project three months ahead of the schedule.
In another case, Hubei Electric Power Survey and Design Institute (HEPSDI), China was facing difficulty in designing and constructing wind generating sets, pylons and bases, a booster station and associated equipment for the CNY 435 million Macheng Caijiazhai Wind Farm. Due to the sloppy, mountainous terrains and large amounts of project data to be managed among multiple stakeholders, designing the access road and power structures required precise modelling and collaboration.
HEPSDI used Bentley’s collaborative technology, which reduced site survey and design time by 20 days. It helped automate the precise cut-and-fill calculations, saving approximately $14,000 in construction costs.
Hydropower system maintenance
Hydropower plants are an essential source of renewable energy, but they face unique challenges in ensuring uninterrupted operation. Turbines, generators and other mechanical components must endure continuous water flow, leading to wear and tear, which, if unchecked, can result in costly breakdowns. Hydropower plants have an average life expectancy of 40-60 years and most of the hydropower plants are ageing, which means machines are also outdated, resulting in wear and tear, or need frequent maintenance with reduced performance. Hence, digital twin of the entire asset can help operators with data about the overall conditions of the components. With constant inflow of inspection data, it will help engineers to plan maintenance and replace the required components.
The New Bollards Bar Dam built on the North Yuba river in California 50 years ago is one of the tallest dams in the US. Due to its tall structure, survey points are limited and manual data collection methods pose safety risks for the survey team. Besides, there are other challenges such as obtaining permits and approvals for drilling or installing devices. The survey team also faces challenges due to its steep terrain and narrow and restricted road.
To address these issues, Bentley Systems created a digital twin of the dam, which automated the process of monitoring, remote data collection and receiving alerts based on early warning thresholds. Drones were flown to do the survey of the entire structure and monitor its behaviour. As a result, the automated route delivered thousand times more data monitoring points per week, compared to previous manual methods with a 50 per cent enhanced data accuracy over the manual data.
Conclusion
Going forward, as the renewable energy sector continues to expand, the role of digital twin technology will only become more critical. These virtual replicas not only offer more than just a snapshot of operations, but can also provide insights necessary to optimise performance, reduce costs and ultimately drive the world towards a more sustainable future.
