Demos:
National Infrastructure
Countries must make significant changes to their infrastructure and energy systems to meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement. A comprehensive approach is required to evaluate possible changes as the challenges posted by climate change are inherently interdisciplinary and interconnected. Digitalisation offers new ways to design and operate infrastructure, and will form an important part of the response to this challenge. Digital Twins composed of distributed collaborative entities that share, and combine data to answer complex questions have been identified as a key aspect of the move towards this digitalisation.
Through the visualisations below, we demonstrate how a comprehensive Digital Twin can be implemented as a dynamic Knowledge Graph using technologies from the Semantic Web. The Knowledge Graph includes the notions of a “base world” that describes the current state of the real world, and of “parallel worlds” that support the intelligent exploration of alternative scenarios.
Using the tools provided by The World Avatar, CMCL has created a UK based digital twin that supports queries across number of aspects of the UK energy related infrastructure, including the electrical power system, the gas transmission system and land use.
The knowledge graph based architecture of the digital twin allows to address cross-domain geospatial questions. The visualisation linked below shows an example that estimates the emissions intensity of each power generator in the UK. Each dot on the map corresponds to a generator, with the size of the dot corresponding to the capacity of the generator and the colour of the dot corresponding to the value of the estimated emissions intensity. In this example, the emissions intensity is calculated at the mass of carbon dioxide emitted per unit value of electricity generated and serves as a proxy for Indicator 9.4.1 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (see right).
The UK based digital twin supports queries across number of aspects of the UK energy related infrastructure, including the electrical power system, the gas transmission system and land use.
The linked visualisation shows a sample of the gas grid data available through the digital twin. The nodes on the map show the intakes and offtakes from the gas transmission system. Select a node to see a data feed for the corresponding gas flow.
The UK based digital twin supports queries across number of aspects of the UK energy related infrastructure, including the electrical power system, the gas transmission system and land use.
The knowledge graph based architecture of the digital twin allows the addressing of cross-domain geospatial questions. The linked visualisation shows an example that calculates how much land would be required to produce bioenergy at the Elean power station located in Cambridgeshire, UK. The power station was commissioned in 2000 and is fuelled using wheat, oilseed, and miscanthus. Biomass for the power station is sourced from within the vicinity of the plant. On completion, Elean was the largest straw-fuelled power station in the world with a capacity of 38 MWe and an efficiency of 32.5%.
Careful consideration must be employed when making decisions concerning land use and biomass resources. The 38 MWe capacity of Elean is enough to power 0.1 million homes. It is estimated that a wind farm located on the same land area as the crops used to generate power at Elean would generate 299 MWe, enough to power 0.7 million homes. Solar photovoltaics occupying the same area are estimated to be able to generate 1019 MWe, enough to power 2.4 million homes. It is estimated that if the land area used to grow crops consumed by Elean was instead used to grow food for humans, it would produce enough food for 59.8 thousand people. This highlights the ‘premium’ associated with using land to grow crops for bioenergy; this digital twin use case is designed to tackle exactly these types of question.