Digital Twins for Flexibility Service Provision from Industrial Energy Systems

The flexibility of energy systems in industrial plants will play an important role in helping bulk energy systems to deal with the various challenges brought by the net-zero carbon transition. The emerging digital twins, which have attracted rapidly increasing interests with some industrial applications, have the potential to facilitate the flexibility service provision from industrial energy systems. This potential is identified in this paper by matching the key features of digital twins and key issues and needs of providing flexibility services from industrial energy systems. The study presented in this paper preliminarily frames this new research area, with potential aspects and directions identified for future research.