An Overview of Digital Twin Concept for Key Components of Renewable Energy Systems

Abstract

Renewable energy (RE) is green and low-carbon energy, which can not only protect the environment, promote the technological diversification of the energy supply system, accelerate the adjustment of energy structure, but also has important significance for the sustainable development of economy. With the increasing complexity of the problems of renewable energy system asset management and ensuring the operational reliability of electric power equipment, it's necessary to establish remote, online, reliable monitoring and inspection techniques for the state evaluation of electrical equipment during the full life cycle. In order to meet these demands, the digital twin is a very suitable technology. In recent years, there are numerous scientific papers demonstrating DT's capabilities in virtual simulation, condition monitoring (CM), power optimization and fault diagnosis for RE generation systems, transmission and transformation equipment and storage systems. The majority of the research focusing on product design, maintenance of operation, condition monitoring and fault decision-making has provided many valuable contributions to academia and industrial fields. Nevertheless, all this valuable information is scattered over many literatures and it is lack of systematic generalization. In this article, different applications of DT technology in RE system are analyzed, advanced methods and theories are summarized comprehensively, and the development trend of DT technology in renewable energy system in the future is introduced.