Developing digital twins in the energy industry – lessons for innovators, policy makers and infrastructure operators.

Scientists and practitioners working on digital twins promise to deliver replicas of the energy system and its components, able to automatically operate in real-time and generate countless scenarios to advise with planning of new infrastructures.

Despite the enthusiasm across the industry, digital twins received criticisms for being mere empty buzzwords, unable to contribute to the ‘twin transition’ of digital and energy sectors. This webinar aims to understand the phenomenon of hype surrounding digital twins, which initially helped to enrol a broad community of stakeholders through the promises of detailed, real-time modelling, but soon after, this framing brought about disappointment and confusion.

Ola Michalec, Lecturer in Digital Futures, University of Bristol Business School, will discuss the challenges of digital twins, going beyond the technical issues of bias and model accuracy and focusing instead on wider governance concerns related to data sharing infrastructures, like transparency of procurement, public engagement, and sustainable financing of public IT projects.