A novel application architecture of digital twin in smart grid

Digital twin (DT) is a hot topic in information engineering, which has been introduced into the intelligent solution of the power grid system to deal with the reliability assurance issues of complex systems. Due to the lack of an operational application architecture model, it is impossible to map the complex system comprehensively. Based on the review of the concept model of DT and the current research situation in the smart grid (SG), an OKDD [i.e., ontology-body (OB), knowledge-body (KB), data-body (DB), and digital-portal (DP)] model of digital twin body (DTB) is proposed and specified in detail. Taking a vacuum circuit breaker and a 35 kV substation of the power grid as examples, the OKDD is applied in the DTB construction, and the developed prognostic and health management (PHM) system demo is practiced in a 110 kV substation simply. The approach is proved to be feasible preliminarily. This model provides a novel method for the unified description and standardization of DTB, which is conducive to the hierarchical creation (unit-system-system of systems) for complex systems. Meanwhile, it can represent complex physical entities more comprehensively, and enable the reuse of knowledge and the duplication of similar unit-level DTB rapidly. Thus, this research provides a new reference for the practical application of DT.