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Towards a Research Agenda for Digital Twins of the Netherlands' Energy Systems

(Co-Funded Project by 4TU.Energy and 4TU.NIRICT)

The Dutch government has established energy policies such as the Dutch Climate Act and the National Climate Agreement to support the energy transition. These policies define directions to achieve CO2 emission reduction goals in five areas: electricity, transport, agriculture and land use, industry, and the built environment. This complex energy ecosystem requires a joint research effort from different energy sectors to provide innovative solutions to address the associated challenges. Digital Twins (DT) offer great potential to optimize energy systems and achieve sustainability goals. However, there is a lack of unified knowledge and alignment on this concept when targeting Dutch energy systems. To bridge this gap, we aim to bring together key stakeholders from the energy system (e.g., transmission and distribution system operators (TSO) and (DSO), companies, and knowledge institutions) and the ICT domain to share their experiences, challenges, and perspectives. With this Workshop series, the ICT and energy communities will gain deep insights into the underlying engineering and scientific challenges related to DTs for energy systems. This will enable them to identify the interplay (needs, connections, dependencies) across energy sectors and to develop holistic solutions to optimize and improve energy system performance with such DT models. In addition to enhancing system integration expertise for both communities, this Workshop series brings opportunities for collaboration on future DT-energy related research projects, fostering multidisciplinary collaboration with other key players, e.g., policymakers, regulators, and industry.

A workshop series (three in total, in 2025) will be organized to collectively reach a common understanding of DTs for energy systems and to identify the challenges in developing, implementing, and maturing such tools in the context of the Dutch energy transition. We aim to invite up to 50 guests with a balanced participation among academic institutions and industries and diversity in gender, background and seniority. And a final report with easy-to-understand infographics will be widely distributed.