ESB Networks to use digital twin to mitigate weather impacts on the grid

Irish DSO ESB Networks is partnering with digital modeller Neara to ‘climate-proof’ the country’s electricity networks with a digital twin.

The proposition is to use LiDAR data along with other geospatial data and imagery to map the networks with a high degree of accuracy down to the level of individual infrastructures including poles and towers and the conductors between them to create a digital twin.

This is then proposed to be used to identify and evaluate risks across the networks, which span some 7,500km, particularly in the face of increasingly more extreme weather events and the growing risk of such weather-related power outages.

“This partnership marks a pivotal moment in climate-proofing our energy supply. Preparing for more violent weather events in advance will be central to keeping communities safe and connected as the climate crisis escalates,” says Taco Engelaar, Senior Vice President of Sydney-headquartered Neara.

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“Proactively managing the hazards that cause distress for families and businesses, like falling trees, is the first step on an exciting road to strengthening our infrastructure. It’s extremely encouraging to see utilities like ESB Networks leading the charge by innovating and exploring new ways of assessing and predicting climate-related risks.”

Neara’s technology draws on AI and digital modelling combining multiple datasets to create digital twins.

The company states that its digital models take around two weeks to provide detailed insights, compared to an average of three to four months for manual reporting, enabling much faster identification and addressing of risks.

ESB Networks is using the platform to address one of the central causes of power outages during extreme weather, namely falling trees and vegetation near power lines.

With the digital twin ESB Networks can identify high-risk areas where these hazards might cause power lines to fail enabling vegetation management activities to be prioritised accordingly.

In the future, ESB Networks is set to use the technology to optimise the use of existing infrastructure by identifying latent capacity where more renewable energy could be run.

It also could be used for other use cases including enhancing network design and construction and automating further management processes to optimise performance and strengthen vital infrastructure.