FUTURE RESILIENCE THROUGH DIGITAL TWINS Katerina Sakkas
“The data-sharing aspect of Digital Twin cityscapes, precincts and countries can be used to plan for, prevent and support recovery from natural disasters and climate change.”1
14 INSIGHTS 2023
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t this year’s Energy Networks Australia (ENA) awards, the top prize for innovation went to Endeavour Energy for its digital twin technology that was put to the test during extreme periodic flooding of the Hawkesbury River in NSW between March 2021 and July 2022. In basic terms, a digital twin is a virtual model of an actual physical object, process or system. It integrates and synchronises a variety of data, eg, real-time and historical satellite imagery, weather patterns and elevation measurements, in order to simulate and thus gain dynamic, detailed insight into a real-world system, enabling decisive, strategic action — something that’s of obvious
value in the context of disaster mitigation. During an ENA webinar showcasing the Innovation Award finalists, Dominic Adams, GM Networks, Energy Networks Australia (ENA), who was on the judging panel for the award, said this sort of innovation was becoming business-as-usual for energy companies in a changing landscape involving the mass rollout of SAPS (standalone power systems), businesses becoming more data-centric in preparation for DER (distributed energy resources) integration and an increasing response to customer needs around climate change resilience. Endeavour Energy’s Edmund Li reiterated this during the webinar: “Endeavour Energy’s franchise area covers 24½ thousand km 2